Looking back on a rough year for the retail sector

? (?) 00:00.000

Retailers are closing the book on 2025. And this was a rough one. Courtney Reagan joins us with a review of how the stores performed. Yeah,

Courtney Reagan (Senior Retail Reporter) 00:09.040

it was quite a year actually. I mean, the retail theme for 2025 when I was trying to think about what it was for me was sort of surprising and for two reasons. I would say the resilience of the consumer and retailers ability to mitigate most of the tariff cost to mute the impact

Courtney Reagan (Senior Retail Reporter) 00:22.160

for consumers. So, the XRT was up 7.5%. That's half of the performance of the S&P 500. It's not great. But if you would have told me that that would be the case in April, I would not have believed you. You can see the very dramatic drop here in all of these charts, all of the

Courtney Reagan (Senior Retail Reporter) 00:35.360

indices that track retail from that April 2nd tariff announcement. Now, consumers were value-seeking, to be fair. And I don't just mean value with price, though. That's part of it. But also value and item attributes. So, if there was value, consumers would buy it. Low-price

Courtney Reagan (Senior Retail Reporter) 00:49.760

players, they soared. Five blow up 80%. Dollar General gained 75%. Dollar Tree, 64%. But specialty mall brands, they also did well. American Eagle launch campaigns with Sidney Sweeney and Travis Kelce, shares grew 59% in 2025. Victoria's Secret stealthily gained 200% in just the

Courtney Reagan (Senior Retail Reporter) 01:07.800

last 6 months, 32% for the year. UBS does have a buy for both AEO and Victoria's Secret for 2026. Now, as Macy's gets smaller, its shares gained 30% for the year. Cole's new CEO led the department store to 45% share growth. Tapestry's deal to buy Capri, that was blocked in late

Courtney Reagan (Senior Retail Reporter) 01:26.160

2024 and thank goodness, I guess, for Tapestry because shares gained 96% this year. But Lulu Lemon shed 45% under internal mis-steps. Target, it missed out on the discount rally too because of a lot of internal mistakes. Both of those names are getting new leaders in the new

Courtney Reagan (Senior Retail Reporter) 01:42.320

year. At least Target for sure, Lulu Lemon is looking. PVH Deckers RH among the biggest losers of the sector because not everybody can be a winner. And if you look to 2026, Jeffrey says it is more constructive but still selective when it comes to retail stocks. Nike is its top

Courtney Reagan (Senior Retail Reporter) 01:57.800

pick, but it does suggest a short for on holding, while UBS puts on holding on its buy list along with Ralph Lauren, TJ X Signet, and a number of others.

? (?) 02:08.520

Is there one consistent theme though, like if you stop doing promotions, if you start doing promotions, if you have a customer friendly CEO or a or an employee friendly CEO, is there a common theme for the for the kinds of retail that

Courtney Reagan (Senior Retail Reporter) 02:25.720

do well? The best thing I could come up with and it sounds really generic and I was trying to explain explain it. It's a sort of idea of value. So, Dick's executive chairman, as Dak said to me, just because a baseball bat is priced right, doesn't mean a consumer will buy it. But

Courtney Reagan (Senior Retail Reporter) 02:40.040

if that baseball bat helps that kid score more home runs or improves its stats in some way, the consumer sees value in that and then we will sell it. No matter what it costs. And so, that's where that's where it kind of started to be tricky is look, where are consumers finding

Courtney Reagan (Senior Retail Reporter) 02:54.440

value? Yes, price is part of it, but those item attributes are another part. You can't just put up a private label that's less expensive, but if it's not great in the consumer's viewpoint, they're not going to pay for it just because it's priced lower. Courtney,

? (?) 03:07.280

thank you. Very much. It's a It's a big industry to cover and do It really is really well. Thank you