November 18, 2025 • 25 mins
Watch Scarlet and Paul LIVE every day on YouTube: http://bit.ly/3vTiACF.
Bloomberg Intelligence hosted by Paul Sweeney and Scarlet Fu
-Mandeep Singh, Global Tech Research Head at Bloomberg Intelligence, discusses top tech stories. Microsoft Corp. and Nvidia Corp. are committing to invest up to a combined $15 billion in Anthropic PBC, in a move that ties the AI developer closer to two of the biggest backers for its rival OpenAI.
-Drew Reading, Bloomberg Intelligence U.S Homebuilding Analyst, recaps Home Depot earnings. Home Depot cut its full-year earnings guidance, warning that some unsteady consumers are hitting the pause button on big-ticket home purchases. The company expects adjusted earnings per share to decline from a year ago, citing the overall weakness in the housing market and a lack of storms that hampered demand in certain categories.
-Matt Henriksson, Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Medtech Analyst, recaps Medtronic earnings. The medical device maker lifted the bottom end of its range for adjusted profit forecast for the year. The company also boosted its organic revenue outlook following better-than-expected results in the second quarter.
-Abigail Gilmartin, Bloomberg Intelligence Athleisure and Footwear Analyst, recaps Amer Sports earnings. Amer Sports Inc. raised its full-year guidance for the third time this year after strong demand for its Salomon footwear drove quarterly sales to a record. Sales growth at the group’s two other units — including the Technical Apparel segment and the Ball & Racquet Sports unit — also surpassed expectations. As a result, overall group sales also hit a new high.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. You're listening to the
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He's done on Apple, Cocklay and Android Auto with the
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Speaker 2 (00:24):
There's a lot of commitments going on out there in
the technology world, Scarlett Nvidia is committed to investing up
to ten billion dollars in Entropic. Microsoft is also committed
to invest up to five billion dollars in Entropic and
Anthropic for its silent, It's committed to buy thirty billion
dollars of Azure compute capacity.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
So we just talking about these tens of billions of
dollars like it's nothing, right.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
I don't get it. It's just the circular stuff we see.
But people tell me not to worry. Coming up right here,
the best dressed man on Wall Street, his turbine matches
is tie every day, no accident. I mean, nice job.
MANYEP saying he's a senior tech dude. It Bloomberg Intelligence
and I have a lot of big companies making some
big commitments in Anthropic. What is nthropic again?
Speaker 4 (01:09):
Well, Nthropic is one of the five frontier lms that
are remaining I mean, and they are leading the charge
when it comes to generative AI. So it's one of
the five. The other one are Google, Open Ai, Meta
and Xai. And so look, when it comes to these commitments,
(01:29):
it's pretty obvious that OpenAI has raised the bar by
announcing they're going to spend one point four trillion. So
the question is what are the other LLM companies going
to do? And Entropic is also a pure play LLM,
and in their case, they don't have the funding, I mean,
they don't have the balance sheet like Google or Meta have,
(01:51):
so they have to raise the money either in the
private markets or from someone like Nvidia, or get into
an agreement with Microsoft, which also has an agreement with
open Ai. So that's where you know LM's need compute.
That's how you serve billion plus users, and that's where
you know the numbers get bigger and bigger when it
(02:12):
comes to the tie up with cloud provider.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
This is like the popular click in high school where
everyone knows each other and everyone's messing around with each other.
Just give us a little bit of background here on
Anthropic because My understanding is that it was founded by
folks who used to work at open ai and some
of the early investors like big stakeholders include Alphabet and
include Amazon, and now you've got Microsoft in there. I mean,
(02:37):
is there anyone who's not part of Anthropic and not
committed to investing in this company?
Speaker 4 (02:43):
Well, you could say Meta, they're doing things, We're doing
their own thing. They are doing their own thing in
terms of you know, using the computer internally, and they
don't have a cloud business.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Is that a problem for them that metas out there
on its own. I know, it doesn't have its own
cloud business, but it's not buying stakes or committed to
invest up to five billion or ten billion in any
of these AI companies.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
I mean, so far, just to go to Meta, it
feels like, you know, investors were okay with them using
the GPU compute for their own family of apps. But
the fact that they're talking about one hundred billion plus
in capex for next year without having a substantial ROI.
And what I mean by rois in the case of Microsoft,
(03:27):
yes they are raising their capex two hundred and twenty billion,
but they're winning deals like the one with Nthropic thirty
billion dollar in commitment from Entropic, so somebody is paying
for that compute. In the case of Microsoft, you don't
have that with a meta How are you generating ROI
outside of your family of apps? And over there you
(03:48):
have to show a really substantial increase in engagement to
convince investors it's worth hundred billion plus in capex.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Any of these open ais anthropics are they going to
ever come public? Do you think?
Speaker 4 (04:01):
I mean, in the case of Entropic, look, I know
the numbers are getting big, but their gross margins at
this point are probably better than open ai, which is
doing too many things. I mean, the biggest risk I
see for open aiy is they feel they can get
into any business, whether it's chip business, whether it's you know,
(04:21):
obviously l M is their turf, any type of applications,
and that's where there's a possibility of a misstep. You
can end up wasting time because you just don't have,
you know, the capability. Yeah, the focus there Entropic is
more focused.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Dumb question of the day. Yeah, these US companies, Entropic
opening are they base? Where are they? Good question? Okay,
So I'm going to go out there visit my son
at Santa Clara. They're in the backyard right there. I
can go knock on the door of Chatch.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
They're not incorporated in Dublin or you know, some some islands.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
Look, it's a nonprofit looking to have a profitable and
so all that could happen.
Speaker 5 (05:03):
But look at the end of.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
The day, these llms are showing constant improvement, which is
what's driving you know, companies like Microsoft to partner with Entropic.
They have that exclusive partnership with Opening Eye, but now
they are diversifying.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us Live
weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Cocklay and Android
Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever
you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube
home depot.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
They cut their forecast on week remodeling demands off the
check in with John Tucker to see if that is
in fact the case, because he is like the do
it yourself kind of guy.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Really, what has he done in his house?
Speaker 2 (05:50):
It does everything, and like big jobs that take a
long time, Like he doesn't ream out in the bathroom
and he does plumbing, he does all this stuff. Oh,
hes about lumber that he can't get quality the lumbers
He's got to go to. He's got a guy.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Then he's like their model customer.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Yes, exactly right, he's the guy. So let's check in
with that Drew reading. He covers all the homebuilders, he
covers all the stores that cater to the homebowners, like
home depot. Drew, thanks so much for joining us here.
What did the home depots say about their customers?
Speaker 6 (06:19):
So they came in with the same store sales growth
of about zero point two percent, which misconsensus this quarter.
That was largely due to whether last year they had
pretty significant gains from storms. This year that wasn't replicated,
so that had about an eighty basis point impact on
the comp And that's important because if you back that out,
the underlying business has been relatively stable with about a
(06:42):
one percent comp you know, so underlying trends still pretty stable.
I think the bigger problem is that last quarter they
said that they had expected to see an acceleration in
demand in the second half, and that hasn't materialized. We
have gotten the pullback in rates, but that hasn't translated
into housing activity.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Yeah, and the problem there is that customers are deferring
their large purchases. Demand has remained steady, but it's definitely
not picking up at the same time. So when people
are undertaking some kind of home renovation projects, they're just
doing it at a smaller scale. Does home depot still
benefit from those customers.
Speaker 6 (07:21):
Sure, and that's what's driving a lot of the demand
for the home improvement retailers. It's smaller ticket projects, you know,
maintenance oriented type stuff, which is a huge part of
their business. But to your point, to really see I
guess the turn and growth, what you want to see
as a resurgence in those big ticket categories. Now, big
ticket spending was up two point three percent in the quarter,
(07:42):
but that's morally more reflective of single item purchases to
think about things like appliances, power tools, gypsum. They also
are taking share in the larger pro market, which is
aiding the mix a little bit, but it really doesn't
reflect an increase as you mentioned, in big ticket projects
such as kitchen and bath three models or flooring projects.
(08:04):
And that's really what we want to see turn and
will likely drive the next leg of growth next year.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
So I ask about that big ticket items versus smaller
projects because I wonder what this means for competitor Lows.
Low's shares are down today, but only by about one
point three percent versus Home Depots four percent, and I
wonder how much you can extrapolate from Home Depot to Lows,
which will be reporting on the nineteenth before the market open,
so that is tomorrow morning.
Speaker 6 (08:30):
Yeah, so for loaws, we're expecting to hear pretty similar
commentary that we heard from Home Depot today. They're operating
in the same environment with a weak housing backdrop, more
cautious consumers. The main difference between the two businesses would
be Home depots greater exposure to the professional contractor, which
is fifty percent or more of sales compared to Lows
(08:51):
at about thirty percent. So we have seen on a
relative basis more weakness among the DIY category with particular
strength and pros. Really that would be the only difference.
But I think by and large, the sentiment is going
to be that consumers are taking on more caution because
they're increasingly worried about the outlook for the economy, the
(09:12):
outlook for their job, and that's causing them to defer
spending on discretionary categories.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
How about tariffs. What are the companies saying about tariffs
at Low's and Home Depot like tariffs on wood hammers.
I guess I don't know.
Speaker 6 (09:26):
Sure, so not a whole lot of discussion this quarter.
I think, you know, given home Depot and low scale,
I think they're relatively well positioned to kind of navigate
this environment with their suppliers. That being said, they're certainly
not entirely immune. They kind of shifted their stance on
their pricing strategy. Earlier in the year, they said that
they wouldn't be raising prices, but as a situation in
the landscape continue to evolve, they said they would be
(09:48):
raising prices selectively. We did see that, I think a
little bit in the average ticket this quarter, the growth
in that, but we don't really know at this point
what the demand impact has been. There was a lot
of noise in the quarter, as I mentioned, with the weather,
so arish will certainly be something to watch, particularly since
we just heard some new terraffs being introduced on lumber
(10:10):
imports and as well as kitchen and bath cabinets, which
increase significantly as we get into next year, so not
a huge impact to this point, but certainly something to
keep an eye on.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Okay, definitely, I'm curious how much does Home Depot and
Low's mirror what's happening in the housing market, because when
it comes to housing, of course, the affordability crisis is
you know, the big thing that's keeping it frozen. Mortgage
rates have come down, but they're still really elevated compared
to where they were during the pandemic. Inflation is capping
(10:40):
spending on big projects, and overall home prices remain really
really high, so people just can't move and they're stuck
in place, and they don't necessarily want to spend more
than they can afford.
Speaker 6 (10:54):
No, it's a great point, and housing is extremely important
to Home depot and Lows as you would expect, you know, housing,
the housing market has been stagnant. We're running about a
four million annuallyzed sales pace that's about twenty five percent
below normalized levels. We know that when people list a
home for sale or when they purchase new home, there
tends to be increased spending. Movers tend to spend a
(11:15):
lot more than people who are already in their house,
so they're certainly losing that piece of the business. I
think one of the interesting things to keep an eye
on looking forward is home prices. Home deep on Lows
have historically told us that that's probably the most important
aspect of the housing market to them, and you know,
as we well know, since twenty twenty, home prices are
(11:35):
up fifty percent or more depending on the market, so
owners have up a lot of equity. But what we're
starting to see now is prices rise at a much
slower pace, and in a lot of key housing markets
across the country, we're actually seeing year over year declines
in home prices. So when you start to get declining
home prices, that hits at that confidence aspect. If you
think the value of your property is falling, you're less
(11:56):
inclined to invest. So it's something they called out. It's
not necessarily something we've seen at the national level, but
if you look at particular markets around the country, it's
something that's starting to happen.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Stay with us more from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
weekdays at ten am Eastern on Applecarplay and Android Auto
with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever you
get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Way way back in the day at the Chase Manhattan
Bank credit training program exhausted program. At the end of it,
you had to do like a big project, pick a company,
and do like a detailed credit report on it. My
company was Medtronic.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
The device maker, the medical device maker, exactly right.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
So I knocked him dead. By the way, it was
just a killer.
Speaker 5 (12:49):
AnyWho.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
It stocks up four percent today, some good numbs, fifty
two week high. It's good to be in the medical
device business. I guess. I don't know, so we'll check
it out. Matt Hendrickson Hendrickson joints us here, senior medtech analyst.
He's based in Jersey. But you're in the big town today. Yeah,
commute in every day, you come in every day.
Speaker 5 (13:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Nice, Good for you.
Speaker 5 (13:09):
That's what I'm driving too. What Oh yeah, you drive
to where? Uh walking a lot right out.
Speaker 7 (13:15):
There, dude, and you do the congestion pricing. I have
to Yeah, where do you drive from? Well, Ridgewood so
we have trains, dude, I know. But the Secaucus junction
it's always a mess.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Oh my God, what a knuckle ahead. All right, Matt,
thanks for joining us here. I as serious problems with
your committing strategy. Talk to us about Metron. What's going
on there?
Speaker 5 (13:35):
Well, you know, let's take a step back.
Speaker 8 (13:37):
Twelve months ago, they had a lot of promising products
in the pipeline. The question was execution, and what we're
seeing the last few quarters is you're starting to see
some of that execution. So when they raise their organic
revenue growth guidance by a fifty basis points today to
five and a half percent, that was driven a lot
by what they call is their cardiac ablation segment. This
(13:59):
is new technology that's being used to treat atrial fibrillation.
That segment alone grew seventy one percent year over year.
So having that as off a billion dollar revenue run
rate is what's driving that kind of growth, and is
what is expecting to accelerate that growth going into fiscal
twenty twenty.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Seventy one percent is going to get bigger.
Speaker 8 (14:19):
Yes, they actually said that, and we actually in our
follow up questions with them, we asked just to confirm,
are you going to accelerate that seventy one percent growth
in their fiscal third quarter, which is the one coming up,
And they said yes, and it's basically the adoption of
without game two technical. It's called pulse field ablation and
it's a new way of ablating the heart to treat
(14:41):
atrial fibrillation.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Does it have a main competitor in this space?
Speaker 8 (14:45):
Yeah, so it's kind of turned into a duopoly right
now between Metronic and Boston Scientific, the tickers BSX. And
what you saw this quarter is Boston Scientific was in
first and their growth in the quarter sixty percent. So
Metronic is highlighting that it was actually growing faster in
the quarter than Boston its main competitor.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Was how's in these medical device companies like Metronic and
how are they dealing with this administration in I don't know,
terriffs regulations. What's the backdrop for this for the sector
of the healthcare space.
Speaker 8 (15:20):
Yeah, so if you look at broadly, it should be
more insulated than some of the other kind of import
export type of businesses. Procedure volumes remain steady. Devices that
are used in the US are mostly built in the US.
There's some caveats here and there, so it's overall relative
(15:40):
to the broader market minimal. Metronic highlighted that you know,
the worst quarter is going to be coming up this
their fiscal third quarter, which ends in January, a little
bit worse in the fourth quarter that ends in April,
and then you know, they haven't gotten too much into
fiscal twenty twenty seven, but they said it should be
incremental overall.
Speaker 5 (15:59):
It should be about.
Speaker 8 (16:00):
One hundred and eighty million to the overall net income
that you so, but that's talking about a company that's
making thirty billion plus in revenue per year.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
What I noticed as well is that Medtronic has as
one of its biggest investors Elliott Investment Management, the activist investors,
And yeah, they've become one of the biggest shareholders earlier
this year, and they've made some changes, adding some folks
to its board as independent directors, presumably ones that Elliott
finds favorable. What does this mean for that relationship? Is
(16:31):
this an antagonistic relationship or is it something that's a
little bit friendlier.
Speaker 8 (16:35):
I would to say more it's a friendlier type of relationship.
And I think it goes back to what I was
talking about twelve months ago, when we were looking at
a company that had all these massine developments in the
pipeline and they just couldn't get that revenue growth from
the four to five percent up to that five to
six percent where we're seeing now. Now, the question is
how much of that is behind the scenes Elliott is
(16:57):
making a push or just the fact that the management
team just needed that extra time to get that initial
acceleration of the growth just internally. But yeah, they came
in I mean honestly at the right time with kind
of at the when it was down, you know, more
than twenty percent.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
To seeing a potentially friendly relationship between Elliott and the
target companies at Targets.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Yeah, exactly good point. But maybe it's working this bit
to the case. Matt thinks so much for joining us.
Appreciated Matt Hendrickson. He's a senior medtech analyst Bloomberg Intelligence.
He of the questionable commuting strategy. We'll discuss that at
a little bit.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
What would you do if you were him?
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Oh, train, dude, I mean that's what I mean. Live
in New Jersey for that reason.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Is that New Jersey Transit or is that another one?
Speaker 2 (17:38):
But he lives in Ridgid, which is beat for no
rail service, cause you got to you gotta go to.
Speaker 5 (17:43):
You're kind of only supporting my thesis there.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Yeah, but you don't come into the city.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
I mean that there's a real proba is with the
driving into midtown.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Yes, you go to Secaucus, you hop on a train,
you're in, and then you're done.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
Drive to se Caucus.
Speaker 5 (17:56):
No, or I do my five point thirty commute too.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Coarclay, and Android
Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever
you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Amer Sports. That's Solomon. They got the Solomon best binding company, right,
best bindings in the world, I think I've had I've
been skied on Solomon Bindings for like forty years. But
they had lots of other stuff, Wilson's Sports and all
that kind of stuff. They's some pretty good numbers today.
I mean, you know, raising their guidance for the third
time this year. So I don't know the consumers seam.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
I think in the shaped economy they serve the upper leg,
upper part.
Speaker 4 (18:43):
Of the king.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
All right, that's the place to be. Abigail good Martin
joins us here. She is a footwear and at leisure analyst.
I don't know what ath leisure is for Bloomberg Intelligence.
She is a proud spider University of Richmond spider.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
Oh that's how I didn't know that that was the mass.
Speaker 6 (18:57):
It is.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
It's very unique, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
I ken't like most Sure looks like it's a big spider.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Yeah, we'll get you the Yeah, get We'll get one
for you. I got my fortieth anniversary, you know, rich
Richmond coming up this year. This are you going to go?
Damn right? I am going. I might actually joined forced
me to kind of go on the committee. I'm in charge.
I'll be dialing for dollars getting people to come. And
Abba goes she's a spial So talk to us about
a M E. R. Sports here. I don't think a
lot of people know them too.
Speaker 9 (19:23):
Yeah no, because the brands underneath that. It is Arctics,
which is their outdoor performance brand, as well as Solomon
and Wilson are their three biggest so I think today
was a big day for them. They did really well,
you know, sales up thirty percent. Broad Based strength across regions,
across channels, and across brands. I think the key thing
people are looking for was China. Arcterics recently had some
(19:46):
controversy in China with fireworks display in the Himalayas.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
That what fireworks display?
Speaker 2 (19:53):
He displayed fireworks in the Himalayans.
Speaker 9 (19:55):
Arctics for set off fireworks exactly. It was definitely missed
up for an outdoor brand that's really focused on sustainability,
and there was definitely some concern that there would be
a little backlash in China. There's definitely a lot of
people upset about it, and they were fined by the
Chinese government and working.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
To restore the ecology there.
Speaker 9 (20:17):
But Greater China was up forty seven percent, momentum is
continuing into four Q so I think that was really
a big takeaway, just quelling investors' concerns about potential backlash
in China, especially because they're the number one outdoor sports
brand in China.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
Arctereric So I had no idea that they have such
strong brands. I mean, a mare Sports on its own,
it's kind of it doesn't it's not memorable the name,
the parent company name, right, but the brands of course,
are Solomon Arctic. So Wilson, as you mentioned, what does
the tariff picture look like for this company?
Speaker 9 (20:49):
Yeah, I think it's very similar to most of the
other companies. I think for them, what benefits them as
their premium positioning. They're able to raise prices and they're
not seen any backlash from consumers or pullback. They're still
seeing very strong full price sell through, so they're able
to offset some of those tariff costs with that, which
I think is really helping. And we're seeing that with
(21:11):
a lot of more of the premium brands are able
to kind of navigate through the tariffs since their consumers
are willing to pay upper K, upper.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
K of the K shaped economy.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
I guess I know that's I guess where you want
to be there. Talk to us about the footwear market here.
I think you know, Nike, Adidas, all that kind of stuff.
What's going on there?
Speaker 9 (21:30):
Yeah, I think you know, we're in store for a
very interesting holiday season. I think that we're going to
continue to see the premium brands continue to do well
on holdings recently just reported and did phenomenal and they
also said they're not seeing any backlash on raised prices
and they'll continue to do you know, limited discounting through
the holidays. So we may see some differences between the
(21:53):
two companies, but we just had our recent BI survey
and Nike continues to lete. I think there's been concerned
over Nike, but they still are the major shareholder and
still a favorite brand of millennials. Gen Z's everyone for
the holidays, so they should continue to do well too.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
What is the Mayorsports distribution strategy? Do they have a
DTC offering or are they going through third party retailers.
Speaker 9 (22:15):
Yeah, that's a great question, so it's a little different
for each brand. For Arctics, they're leaning a lot more
into DTC. They've changed their distribution strategy from basically nine
eighty percent wholesale to eighty percent DTC over the last
three years, and they're really focusing on growing their store
base because I think not a lot of people know
about Arctics. It's really going to help the brand awareness.
(22:37):
So even in the US, they're looking to double their
store a count by twenty thirty. So that's that Solomon
continues to be wholesale, especially for footwear. We're seeing this
holiday season consumers strap for cash they're wanting to go
into the stores and try on their shoes and make
sure it's the right fit and buy them versus you know,
buy five pairs and return them.
Speaker 6 (22:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 9 (22:59):
So the wholesale distribution for Solomon and is really key,
and they're in a lot of key premium partners, I
would say, and you know the running specialty stores as well.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
I mean, I'm looking at your report here, research your
reportal on the sneaker business. I didn't know there were
so many shoe manufacturers. I mean, Nike's the dominant one,
as you said, but there's like fourteen in your survey here.
Speaker 4 (23:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
Yeah, those are.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
A competitive marketplace.
Speaker 9 (23:24):
Definitely, it's getting even more competitive as consumers with AI technology,
you know, there's just such more of a breath of discovery.
So that's where product is really coming into play this
holiday season. I think, you know, the innovation, product and style.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
If there's one thing to be worried about when it
comes to a mare sports, what would it be? I mean,
what's an area that they're not executing on?
Speaker 9 (23:49):
So I think the China thing was the one uncertainty
for this quarter that we were Definitely it could have
gone either way, So that would be the biggest thing.
But honestly, they're executing on most of their things. Their
biggest drivers are DTC, Women's and China, and all of
those were up double digits and more. And they're really
gaining share in women's which I think is a big
(24:09):
new opportunity for them as more women joined the outdoor market.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
All right, which have you purchased in the last twelve months?
Sneaker brands for baby boomers? Sketchers?
Speaker 6 (24:21):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (24:21):
What what Sketches continues to win?
Speaker 9 (24:25):
It's honestly, they're so comfortable, they're like the price point,
the quality, I know, I know, I know, I.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
Know, but that is not something that they market out there,
that they put out there.
Speaker 9 (24:37):
No, and they're the third largest footwear brand totally. Really yeah,
I think right behind Adidas.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
Next you're going to tell me that, you know, the
boomers are using the shoes with the little wheel in
the back of.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Them, the wheelers, the wheels.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
Yeah, no, they're doing the step ins. You don't even
have to bend down your shoe.
Speaker 5 (24:53):
Is that's it?
Speaker 2 (24:54):
That's what I think it is.
Speaker 6 (24:55):
Ye.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
I think you're right, all right, I mean, yeah, there
you go. I mean the kids, the gen Z the millennials,
they're still in that Nike brand Yeah brand still.
Speaker 9 (25:03):
Or hokahs yeah, hokah, hokah and on are gaining, but
they're you know, they're still small, and I think people
don't realize that just because there's been such a big boom.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
They're still very like.
Speaker 9 (25:13):
West Coast East Coast oriented, you know, they still have
a lot more room to grow brand awareness in the US,
especially in the middle of America. So yeah, Nike continue
and their higher price points right if not everyone can
afford them.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
This is the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast, available on Apple, Spotify,
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Speaker 2 (00:24):
There's a lot of commitments going on out there in
the technology world, Scarlett Nvidia is committed to investing up
to ten billion dollars in Entropic. Microsoft is also committed
to invest up to five billion dollars in Entropic and
Anthropic for its silent, It's committed to buy thirty billion
dollars of Azure compute capacity.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
So we just talking about these tens of billions of
dollars like it's nothing, right.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
I don't get it. It's just the circular stuff we see.
But people tell me not to worry. Coming up right here,
the best dressed man on Wall Street, his turbine matches
is tie every day, no accident. I mean, nice job.
MANYEP saying he's a senior tech dude. It Bloomberg Intelligence
and I have a lot of big companies making some
big commitments in Anthropic. What is nthropic again?
Speaker 4 (01:09):
Well, Nthropic is one of the five frontier lms that
are remaining I mean, and they are leading the charge
when it comes to generative AI. So it's one of
the five. The other one are Google, Open Ai, Meta
and Xai. And so look, when it comes to these commitments,
(01:29):
it's pretty obvious that OpenAI has raised the bar by
announcing they're going to spend one point four trillion. So
the question is what are the other LLM companies going
to do? And Entropic is also a pure play LLM,
and in their case, they don't have the funding, I mean,
they don't have the balance sheet like Google or Meta have,
(01:51):
so they have to raise the money either in the
private markets or from someone like Nvidia, or get into
an agreement with Microsoft, which also has an agreement with
open Ai. So that's where you know LM's need compute.
That's how you serve billion plus users, and that's where
you know the numbers get bigger and bigger when it
(02:12):
comes to the tie up with cloud provider.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
This is like the popular click in high school where
everyone knows each other and everyone's messing around with each other.
Just give us a little bit of background here on
Anthropic because My understanding is that it was founded by
folks who used to work at open ai and some
of the early investors like big stakeholders include Alphabet and
include Amazon, and now you've got Microsoft in there. I mean,
(02:37):
is there anyone who's not part of Anthropic and not
committed to investing in this company?
Speaker 4 (02:43):
Well, you could say Meta, they're doing things, We're doing
their own thing. They are doing their own thing in
terms of you know, using the computer internally, and they
don't have a cloud business.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Is that a problem for them that metas out there
on its own. I know, it doesn't have its own
cloud business, but it's not buying stakes or committed to
invest up to five billion or ten billion in any
of these AI companies.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
I mean, so far, just to go to Meta, it
feels like, you know, investors were okay with them using
the GPU compute for their own family of apps. But
the fact that they're talking about one hundred billion plus
in capex for next year without having a substantial ROI.
And what I mean by rois in the case of Microsoft,
(03:27):
yes they are raising their capex two hundred and twenty billion,
but they're winning deals like the one with Nthropic thirty
billion dollar in commitment from Entropic, so somebody is paying
for that compute. In the case of Microsoft, you don't
have that with a meta How are you generating ROI
outside of your family of apps? And over there you
(03:48):
have to show a really substantial increase in engagement to
convince investors it's worth hundred billion plus in capex.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Any of these open ais anthropics are they going to
ever come public? Do you think?
Speaker 4 (04:01):
I mean, in the case of Entropic, look, I know
the numbers are getting big, but their gross margins at
this point are probably better than open ai, which is
doing too many things. I mean, the biggest risk I
see for open aiy is they feel they can get
into any business, whether it's chip business, whether it's you know,
(04:21):
obviously l M is their turf, any type of applications,
and that's where there's a possibility of a misstep. You
can end up wasting time because you just don't have,
you know, the capability. Yeah, the focus there Entropic is
more focused.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Dumb question of the day. Yeah, these US companies, Entropic
opening are they base? Where are they? Good question? Okay,
So I'm going to go out there visit my son
at Santa Clara. They're in the backyard right there. I
can go knock on the door of Chatch.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
They're not incorporated in Dublin or you know, some some islands.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
Look, it's a nonprofit looking to have a profitable and
so all that could happen.
Speaker 5 (05:03):
But look at the end of.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
The day, these llms are showing constant improvement, which is
what's driving you know, companies like Microsoft to partner with Entropic.
They have that exclusive partnership with Opening Eye, but now
they are diversifying.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us Live
weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Cocklay and Android
Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever
you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube
home depot.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
They cut their forecast on week remodeling demands off the
check in with John Tucker to see if that is
in fact the case, because he is like the do
it yourself kind of guy.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Really, what has he done in his house?
Speaker 2 (05:50):
It does everything, and like big jobs that take a
long time, Like he doesn't ream out in the bathroom
and he does plumbing, he does all this stuff. Oh,
hes about lumber that he can't get quality the lumbers
He's got to go to. He's got a guy.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Then he's like their model customer.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Yes, exactly right, he's the guy. So let's check in
with that Drew reading. He covers all the homebuilders, he
covers all the stores that cater to the homebowners, like
home depot. Drew, thanks so much for joining us here.
What did the home depots say about their customers?
Speaker 6 (06:19):
So they came in with the same store sales growth
of about zero point two percent, which misconsensus this quarter.
That was largely due to whether last year they had
pretty significant gains from storms. This year that wasn't replicated,
so that had about an eighty basis point impact on
the comp And that's important because if you back that out,
the underlying business has been relatively stable with about a
(06:42):
one percent comp you know, so underlying trends still pretty stable.
I think the bigger problem is that last quarter they
said that they had expected to see an acceleration in
demand in the second half, and that hasn't materialized. We
have gotten the pullback in rates, but that hasn't translated
into housing activity.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Yeah, and the problem there is that customers are deferring
their large purchases. Demand has remained steady, but it's definitely
not picking up at the same time. So when people
are undertaking some kind of home renovation projects, they're just
doing it at a smaller scale. Does home depot still
benefit from those customers.
Speaker 6 (07:21):
Sure, and that's what's driving a lot of the demand
for the home improvement retailers. It's smaller ticket projects, you know,
maintenance oriented type stuff, which is a huge part of
their business. But to your point, to really see I
guess the turn and growth, what you want to see
as a resurgence in those big ticket categories. Now, big
ticket spending was up two point three percent in the quarter,
(07:42):
but that's morally more reflective of single item purchases to
think about things like appliances, power tools, gypsum. They also
are taking share in the larger pro market, which is
aiding the mix a little bit, but it really doesn't
reflect an increase as you mentioned, in big ticket projects
such as kitchen and bath three models or flooring projects.
(08:04):
And that's really what we want to see turn and
will likely drive the next leg of growth next year.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
So I ask about that big ticket items versus smaller
projects because I wonder what this means for competitor Lows.
Low's shares are down today, but only by about one
point three percent versus Home Depots four percent, and I
wonder how much you can extrapolate from Home Depot to Lows,
which will be reporting on the nineteenth before the market open,
so that is tomorrow morning.
Speaker 6 (08:30):
Yeah, so for loaws, we're expecting to hear pretty similar
commentary that we heard from Home Depot today. They're operating
in the same environment with a weak housing backdrop, more
cautious consumers. The main difference between the two businesses would
be Home depots greater exposure to the professional contractor, which
is fifty percent or more of sales compared to Lows
(08:51):
at about thirty percent. So we have seen on a
relative basis more weakness among the DIY category with particular
strength and pros. Really that would be the only difference.
But I think by and large, the sentiment is going
to be that consumers are taking on more caution because
they're increasingly worried about the outlook for the economy, the
(09:12):
outlook for their job, and that's causing them to defer
spending on discretionary categories.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
How about tariffs. What are the companies saying about tariffs
at Low's and Home Depot like tariffs on wood hammers.
I guess I don't know.
Speaker 6 (09:26):
Sure, so not a whole lot of discussion this quarter.
I think, you know, given home Depot and low scale,
I think they're relatively well positioned to kind of navigate
this environment with their suppliers. That being said, they're certainly
not entirely immune. They kind of shifted their stance on
their pricing strategy. Earlier in the year, they said that
they wouldn't be raising prices, but as a situation in
the landscape continue to evolve, they said they would be
(09:48):
raising prices selectively. We did see that, I think a
little bit in the average ticket this quarter, the growth
in that, but we don't really know at this point
what the demand impact has been. There was a lot
of noise in the quarter, as I mentioned, with the weather,
so arish will certainly be something to watch, particularly since
we just heard some new terraffs being introduced on lumber
(10:10):
imports and as well as kitchen and bath cabinets, which
increase significantly as we get into next year, so not
a huge impact to this point, but certainly something to
keep an eye on.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Okay, definitely, I'm curious how much does Home Depot and
Low's mirror what's happening in the housing market, because when
it comes to housing, of course, the affordability crisis is
you know, the big thing that's keeping it frozen. Mortgage
rates have come down, but they're still really elevated compared
to where they were during the pandemic. Inflation is capping
(10:40):
spending on big projects, and overall home prices remain really
really high, so people just can't move and they're stuck
in place, and they don't necessarily want to spend more
than they can afford.
Speaker 6 (10:54):
No, it's a great point, and housing is extremely important
to Home depot and Lows as you would expect, you know, housing,
the housing market has been stagnant. We're running about a
four million annuallyzed sales pace that's about twenty five percent
below normalized levels. We know that when people list a
home for sale or when they purchase new home, there
tends to be increased spending. Movers tend to spend a
(11:15):
lot more than people who are already in their house,
so they're certainly losing that piece of the business. I
think one of the interesting things to keep an eye
on looking forward is home prices. Home deep on Lows
have historically told us that that's probably the most important
aspect of the housing market to them, and you know,
as we well know, since twenty twenty, home prices are
(11:35):
up fifty percent or more depending on the market, so
owners have up a lot of equity. But what we're
starting to see now is prices rise at a much
slower pace, and in a lot of key housing markets
across the country, we're actually seeing year over year declines
in home prices. So when you start to get declining
home prices, that hits at that confidence aspect. If you
think the value of your property is falling, you're less
(11:56):
inclined to invest. So it's something they called out. It's
not necessarily something we've seen at the national level, but
if you look at particular markets around the country, it's
something that's starting to happen.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Stay with us more from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
weekdays at ten am Eastern on Applecarplay and Android Auto
with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever you
get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Way way back in the day at the Chase Manhattan
Bank credit training program exhausted program. At the end of it,
you had to do like a big project, pick a company,
and do like a detailed credit report on it. My
company was Medtronic.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
The device maker, the medical device maker, exactly right.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
So I knocked him dead. By the way, it was
just a killer.
Speaker 5 (12:49):
AnyWho.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
It stocks up four percent today, some good numbs, fifty
two week high. It's good to be in the medical
device business. I guess. I don't know, so we'll check
it out. Matt Hendrickson Hendrickson joints us here, senior medtech analyst.
He's based in Jersey. But you're in the big town today. Yeah,
commute in every day, you come in every day.
Speaker 5 (13:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Nice, Good for you.
Speaker 5 (13:09):
That's what I'm driving too. What Oh yeah, you drive
to where? Uh walking a lot right out.
Speaker 7 (13:15):
There, dude, and you do the congestion pricing. I have
to Yeah, where do you drive from? Well, Ridgewood so
we have trains, dude, I know. But the Secaucus junction
it's always a mess.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Oh my God, what a knuckle ahead. All right, Matt,
thanks for joining us here. I as serious problems with
your committing strategy. Talk to us about Metron. What's going
on there?
Speaker 5 (13:35):
Well, you know, let's take a step back.
Speaker 8 (13:37):
Twelve months ago, they had a lot of promising products
in the pipeline. The question was execution, and what we're
seeing the last few quarters is you're starting to see
some of that execution. So when they raise their organic
revenue growth guidance by a fifty basis points today to
five and a half percent, that was driven a lot
by what they call is their cardiac ablation segment. This
(13:59):
is new technology that's being used to treat atrial fibrillation.
That segment alone grew seventy one percent year over year.
So having that as off a billion dollar revenue run
rate is what's driving that kind of growth, and is
what is expecting to accelerate that growth going into fiscal
twenty twenty.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Seventy one percent is going to get bigger.
Speaker 8 (14:19):
Yes, they actually said that, and we actually in our
follow up questions with them, we asked just to confirm,
are you going to accelerate that seventy one percent growth
in their fiscal third quarter, which is the one coming up,
And they said yes, and it's basically the adoption of
without game two technical. It's called pulse field ablation and
it's a new way of ablating the heart to treat
(14:41):
atrial fibrillation.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Does it have a main competitor in this space?
Speaker 8 (14:45):
Yeah, so it's kind of turned into a duopoly right
now between Metronic and Boston Scientific, the tickers BSX. And
what you saw this quarter is Boston Scientific was in
first and their growth in the quarter sixty percent. So
Metronic is highlighting that it was actually growing faster in
the quarter than Boston its main competitor.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Was how's in these medical device companies like Metronic and
how are they dealing with this administration in I don't know,
terriffs regulations. What's the backdrop for this for the sector
of the healthcare space.
Speaker 8 (15:20):
Yeah, so if you look at broadly, it should be
more insulated than some of the other kind of import
export type of businesses. Procedure volumes remain steady. Devices that
are used in the US are mostly built in the US.
There's some caveats here and there, so it's overall relative
(15:40):
to the broader market minimal. Metronic highlighted that you know,
the worst quarter is going to be coming up this
their fiscal third quarter, which ends in January, a little
bit worse in the fourth quarter that ends in April,
and then you know, they haven't gotten too much into
fiscal twenty twenty seven, but they said it should be
incremental overall.
Speaker 5 (15:59):
It should be about.
Speaker 8 (16:00):
One hundred and eighty million to the overall net income
that you so, but that's talking about a company that's
making thirty billion plus in revenue per year.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
What I noticed as well is that Medtronic has as
one of its biggest investors Elliott Investment Management, the activist investors,
And yeah, they've become one of the biggest shareholders earlier
this year, and they've made some changes, adding some folks
to its board as independent directors, presumably ones that Elliott
finds favorable. What does this mean for that relationship? Is
(16:31):
this an antagonistic relationship or is it something that's a
little bit friendlier.
Speaker 8 (16:35):
I would to say more it's a friendlier type of relationship.
And I think it goes back to what I was
talking about twelve months ago, when we were looking at
a company that had all these massine developments in the
pipeline and they just couldn't get that revenue growth from
the four to five percent up to that five to
six percent where we're seeing now. Now, the question is
how much of that is behind the scenes Elliott is
(16:57):
making a push or just the fact that the management
team just needed that extra time to get that initial
acceleration of the growth just internally. But yeah, they came
in I mean honestly at the right time with kind
of at the when it was down, you know, more
than twenty percent.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
To seeing a potentially friendly relationship between Elliott and the
target companies at Targets.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Yeah, exactly good point. But maybe it's working this bit
to the case. Matt thinks so much for joining us.
Appreciated Matt Hendrickson. He's a senior medtech analyst Bloomberg Intelligence.
He of the questionable commuting strategy. We'll discuss that at
a little bit.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
What would you do if you were him?
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Oh, train, dude, I mean that's what I mean. Live
in New Jersey for that reason.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Is that New Jersey Transit or is that another one?
Speaker 2 (17:38):
But he lives in Ridgid, which is beat for no
rail service, cause you got to you gotta go to.
Speaker 5 (17:43):
You're kind of only supporting my thesis there.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Yeah, but you don't come into the city.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
I mean that there's a real proba is with the
driving into midtown.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Yes, you go to Secaucus, you hop on a train,
you're in, and then you're done.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
Drive to se Caucus.
Speaker 5 (17:56):
No, or I do my five point thirty commute too.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Coarclay, and Android
Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever
you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Amer Sports. That's Solomon. They got the Solomon best binding company, right,
best bindings in the world, I think I've had I've
been skied on Solomon Bindings for like forty years. But
they had lots of other stuff, Wilson's Sports and all
that kind of stuff. They's some pretty good numbers today.
I mean, you know, raising their guidance for the third
time this year. So I don't know the consumers seam.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
I think in the shaped economy they serve the upper leg,
upper part.
Speaker 4 (18:43):
Of the king.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
All right, that's the place to be. Abigail good Martin
joins us here. She is a footwear and at leisure analyst.
I don't know what ath leisure is for Bloomberg Intelligence.
She is a proud spider University of Richmond spider.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
Oh that's how I didn't know that that was the mass.
Speaker 6 (18:57):
It is.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
It's very unique, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
I ken't like most Sure looks like it's a big spider.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Yeah, we'll get you the Yeah, get We'll get one
for you. I got my fortieth anniversary, you know, rich
Richmond coming up this year. This are you going to go?
Damn right? I am going. I might actually joined forced
me to kind of go on the committee. I'm in charge.
I'll be dialing for dollars getting people to come. And
Abba goes she's a spial So talk to us about
a M E. R. Sports here. I don't think a
lot of people know them too.
Speaker 9 (19:23):
Yeah no, because the brands underneath that. It is Arctics,
which is their outdoor performance brand, as well as Solomon
and Wilson are their three biggest so I think today
was a big day for them. They did really well,
you know, sales up thirty percent. Broad Based strength across regions,
across channels, and across brands. I think the key thing
people are looking for was China. Arcterics recently had some
(19:46):
controversy in China with fireworks display in the Himalayas.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
That what fireworks display?
Speaker 2 (19:53):
He displayed fireworks in the Himalayans.
Speaker 9 (19:55):
Arctics for set off fireworks exactly. It was definitely missed
up for an outdoor brand that's really focused on sustainability,
and there was definitely some concern that there would be
a little backlash in China. There's definitely a lot of
people upset about it, and they were fined by the
Chinese government and working.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
To restore the ecology there.
Speaker 9 (20:17):
But Greater China was up forty seven percent, momentum is
continuing into four Q so I think that was really
a big takeaway, just quelling investors' concerns about potential backlash
in China, especially because they're the number one outdoor sports
brand in China.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
Arctereric So I had no idea that they have such
strong brands. I mean, a mare Sports on its own,
it's kind of it doesn't it's not memorable the name,
the parent company name, right, but the brands of course,
are Solomon Arctic. So Wilson, as you mentioned, what does
the tariff picture look like for this company?
Speaker 9 (20:49):
Yeah, I think it's very similar to most of the
other companies. I think for them, what benefits them as
their premium positioning. They're able to raise prices and they're
not seen any backlash from consumers or pullback. They're still
seeing very strong full price sell through, so they're able
to offset some of those tariff costs with that, which
I think is really helping. And we're seeing that with
(21:11):
a lot of more of the premium brands are able
to kind of navigate through the tariffs since their consumers
are willing to pay upper K, upper.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
K of the K shaped economy.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
I guess I know that's I guess where you want
to be there. Talk to us about the footwear market here.
I think you know, Nike, Adidas, all that kind of stuff.
What's going on there?
Speaker 9 (21:30):
Yeah, I think you know, we're in store for a
very interesting holiday season. I think that we're going to
continue to see the premium brands continue to do well
on holdings recently just reported and did phenomenal and they
also said they're not seeing any backlash on raised prices
and they'll continue to do you know, limited discounting through
the holidays. So we may see some differences between the
(21:53):
two companies, but we just had our recent BI survey
and Nike continues to lete. I think there's been concerned
over Nike, but they still are the major shareholder and
still a favorite brand of millennials. Gen Z's everyone for
the holidays, so they should continue to do well too.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
What is the Mayorsports distribution strategy? Do they have a
DTC offering or are they going through third party retailers.
Speaker 9 (22:15):
Yeah, that's a great question, so it's a little different
for each brand. For Arctics, they're leaning a lot more
into DTC. They've changed their distribution strategy from basically nine
eighty percent wholesale to eighty percent DTC over the last
three years, and they're really focusing on growing their store
base because I think not a lot of people know
about Arctics. It's really going to help the brand awareness.
(22:37):
So even in the US, they're looking to double their
store a count by twenty thirty. So that's that Solomon
continues to be wholesale, especially for footwear. We're seeing this
holiday season consumers strap for cash they're wanting to go
into the stores and try on their shoes and make
sure it's the right fit and buy them versus you know,
buy five pairs and return them.
Speaker 6 (22:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 9 (22:59):
So the wholesale distribution for Solomon and is really key,
and they're in a lot of key premium partners, I
would say, and you know the running specialty stores as well.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
I mean, I'm looking at your report here, research your
reportal on the sneaker business. I didn't know there were
so many shoe manufacturers. I mean, Nike's the dominant one,
as you said, but there's like fourteen in your survey here.
Speaker 4 (23:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
Yeah, those are.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
A competitive marketplace.
Speaker 9 (23:24):
Definitely, it's getting even more competitive as consumers with AI technology,
you know, there's just such more of a breath of discovery.
So that's where product is really coming into play this
holiday season. I think, you know, the innovation, product and style.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
If there's one thing to be worried about when it
comes to a mare sports, what would it be? I mean,
what's an area that they're not executing on?
Speaker 9 (23:49):
So I think the China thing was the one uncertainty
for this quarter that we were Definitely it could have
gone either way, So that would be the biggest thing.
But honestly, they're executing on most of their things. Their
biggest drivers are DTC, Women's and China, and all of
those were up double digits and more. And they're really
gaining share in women's which I think is a big
(24:09):
new opportunity for them as more women joined the outdoor market.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
All right, which have you purchased in the last twelve months?
Sneaker brands for baby boomers? Sketchers?
Speaker 6 (24:21):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (24:21):
What what Sketches continues to win?
Speaker 9 (24:25):
It's honestly, they're so comfortable, they're like the price point,
the quality, I know, I know, I know, I.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
Know, but that is not something that they market out there,
that they put out there.
Speaker 9 (24:37):
No, and they're the third largest footwear brand totally. Really yeah,
I think right behind Adidas.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
Next you're going to tell me that, you know, the
boomers are using the shoes with the little wheel in
the back of.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Them, the wheelers, the wheels.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
Yeah, no, they're doing the step ins. You don't even
have to bend down your shoe.
Speaker 5 (24:53):
Is that's it?
Speaker 2 (24:54):
That's what I think it is.
Speaker 6 (24:55):
Ye.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
I think you're right, all right, I mean, yeah, there
you go. I mean the kids, the gen Z the millennials,
they're still in that Nike brand Yeah brand still.
Speaker 9 (25:03):
Or hokahs yeah, hokah, hokah and on are gaining, but
they're you know, they're still small, and I think people
don't realize that just because there's been such a big boom.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
They're still very like.
Speaker 9 (25:13):
West Coast East Coast oriented, you know, they still have
a lot more room to grow brand awareness in the US,
especially in the middle of America. So yeah, Nike continue
and their higher price points right if not everyone can
afford them.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
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