By coinnews 
00:00 Speaker A
Now time for some of today’s trending tickers. We are watching Target and Urban Outfitters. Joining me now, we’ve got my morning brief co-host, Madison Mills. First up, Maddie, we got to set the stage here. Yep. Target. Target cut to neutral from buy at Bank of America. This is following a sluggish first quarter. The retailer says, partly due to consumer protests around its diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, and the reverse course there. BofA writing in a research note that they’re unsure when sales will bounce back and expect profits to be squeezed. Shares, they are higher today by about 2% here. We were watching this one closely when they did report earnings though, Maddie.
00:52 Madison Mills
Yeah, one of the things that stands out to me from this note here is that they talk about how the gap between Target and their peers has continued to widen. They do continue to see strong trends in digital and seasonal events, and merchandising initiatives could help, but they’re underperforming their peers like a Walmart, for example, when it comes to things like foot traffic and compsales. Uh they also obviously talk about the company’s gross margin and EPS miss and the lowering of their guidance here off the back of concerns about their digital fulfillment and supply chain costs, uncertainty on the top line as well, and softer sales driving higher markdowns and thus incremental margin pressure for the company longer term. They also think that growth in high margin businesses like marketplace and digital advertising could support stability. But I think it points to the question mark in the room for now for a company like Target that has said they’re going to maintain prices. Do analysts necessarily want to hear that from a company that is definitely going to be impacted from from tariff policy, uh that there’s not going to be that cushion on profits that comes from raising prices on consumers?
02:22 Speaker A
Yeah. Former Vice Chairman, Jerry Storch, telling us earlier today that they’re operating in a way that is off strategy and they’re not who they’re supposed to be right now. If will and who they always have been. So, uh, not executing well was his kind of net takeaway from that. Yeah. Also here, in retail land, if you will, Urban Outfitters soaring after beating on the top and bottom line in the first quarter. Analysts highlighting the performance of its namesake brand, which also beat on net sales here. Taking a look at shares, they’re up by 22% here today, uh, ripping to the upside, one might even say. Like those ripped jeans. Yeah.
03:20 Madison Mills
Hey, nice. Good job. Good job. Yeah, D.A. Davidson Capital Markets, uh, saying that it is a broad-based beat for Urban Outfitters here, strong momentum. Believe that barring a slip up or macro pressure emerging later this year, they continue to see that momentum going forward. And it’s interesting. Remember, Urban is the parent company of the likes of Anthropologie, Free People, and that namesake brand, Urban Outfitters. They also have the clothing rental line through Newly here. But we did see sales beats really across the board here. Obviously, bigger beat when it came to Urban Outfitters on estimates, but also beat for Free People. We came in just shy, actually, for Free People, but it was a beat on Anthropologie. Newly net sales also coming in above the street’s estimates and the retail net sales coming in above estimates as well. And what’s interesting about that mix is that it hits a lot of different income streams as well. So, Urban Outfitters, perhaps a little bit more accessible brand for consumers versus the Free People and Anthros a little bit pricier.
04:41 Speaker A
Yeah, good Philadelphia-based company there. And no doubt they’re probably celebrating, uh, the passage of the tush push, continuing to be able to be used. Anyway, all that considered, you can scan the QR code below to track the best and worst performing stocks with Yahoo Finance’s trending tickers page.