Barron's Streetwise - Can Target Turn Things Around?

Episode Date: June 27, 2025

Jack talks with Barclays analyst Seth Sigman and Barron’s reporter Sabrina Escobar about the once-great growth stock. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...

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Starting point is 00:00:00 No frills delivers. Get groceries delivered to your door from No Frills with PC Express. Shop online and get $15 in PC optimum points on your first five orders. Shop now at nofrills.ca. Target has really accomplished a lot in recent years, but something today feels like it's lacking and so the real question here is can they get back on track? Welcome to the Baron Streetwise podcast. I'm Jack Howe and the voice you just heard, that is Seth Sigmund. He's an analyst at Barclays and he's talking about Target and whether it's fixable. The stock has stunk for some time. In a moment, we'll hear from Seth. We'll also hear from my colleague, Sabrina Escobar at Barons's who recently wrote a cover story on that subject.
Starting point is 00:00:46 First we're going to say a few and I mean few words about another Barron's cover story, our top CEO's issue. I'm going to set a timer to see how quickly you can get through this. I believe in you. I appreciate that vote of confidence. How long is on this timer? Actually, maybe I should do a stopwatch. Are you seeing how long or are you, you've got a number in mind. Give me a number. I don't want to block you in, but I think if you could do under five, Oh, I could do under five.
Starting point is 00:01:12 Come on. I was thinking three. Okay, let's go. It started. We're losing time. Okay. Each year, Barron's publishes a top CEO's list. This is not a stock picking exercise.
Starting point is 00:01:30 Sometimes we end up with companies with bloated valuations. That's okay. But last year's list did beat the market by about a percentage point. The list before that beat by 13 points. So sometimes these companies outperformed. It just depends on the industry exposure really. This is also not a search for the best companies. Some of these are world-beating companies and some are not. What we want are cases where a CEO has done something recently to put the company in a meaningfully better position. We start with a screening process looking at past stock
Starting point is 00:02:01 performance and operating performance and then we have a committee and nominations and discussions and so forth. And then we published the list and then people email me and say, you're an idiot because you've left this person off. Or some people say you're an idiot because you put this person on. Okay. And then some people say, Hey, I enjoyed the list. Thanks. You did a good job.
Starting point is 00:02:22 You get some of those too. That's nice. That's how it goes in this business. Look, I'm not going to run you through the ones that you know are going to be on there, right? The, uh, Nvidia's, the Microsoft's. I'll just tell you about a handful of ones that might be surprising pics or might be, you might disagree with it might be controversial, maybe in industries that
Starting point is 00:02:40 haven't been flourishing. I'll start with Kevin Hockman at Brinker International. Brinker, if you're not familiar, is the owner of Chili's. This is a casual dining chain and Chili's is killing it. If you haven't heard, they're beating everyone on traffic and same store sales growth and so forth. And how do they do that? The Wall Street Journal actually had a nice in-depth report on this
Starting point is 00:03:02 and an interview with the CEO. Basically he streamlined the kitchen process and shrank the menu. You know, went from curly fries and straight fries to just straight fries, but they're serving them hotter and they're more evenly seasoned. That's, you know, one example. And there are a million details that go into how you do that. But you start there with kitchen efficiency. They benefited from some viral marketing.
Starting point is 00:03:24 Alexis, do you know about the cheese pole? Are you? Yes. I mean, I think kids on Tik TOK, I don't know if it's kids. I don't really know the age of these people, but some people are stretching fried mozzarella on Tik TOK to see how far it goes. And apparently the ones that chilies go quite far. And the upshot is that I have a teenage daughter and she came and asked,
Starting point is 00:03:42 Hey dad, can we go to Chili's? I was like, what? It's like, what in the TGI Fridays are you talking about? How do you even know that name? But she saw it on videos on the internet and wanted to try the cheese pull. I, as it turns out, had read about Chili's in terms of the improved stock performance and operating performance and what they've done. And one thing they've done is they've responded to customer outrage about fast food receipts and how high the prices have gotten at the drive through
Starting point is 00:04:07 at McDonald's, for example. So they've come up with these value combo meals. They started 11 bucks and you get a lot of food for that money, including a big beefier burger. And they've come out with new burgers that match the flavor profiles. Of some of these other ones, like the big QP, I think they call it. It's sort of like a taste, maybe not too far from a quarter pounder at McDonald's or one called the big smasher, which is kind of like a smash burger.
Starting point is 00:04:35 Like you might find it, I guess, Shake Shack, but it's got Russian dressing, like you might find on a Big Mac. So whatever you're liking at the drive through at other places, you can get that and get a combo meal on it in a sit down meal at Chili's and that's been a huge seller. How much time do I have left? Alexis? I feel like I went too long on Chili's. I feel like you're done.
Starting point is 00:04:54 You spent about three minutes on Chili's, a minute and a half on the cheese bowl. Give me 45 more seconds to get to like two more. Jacek Olszak at Philip Morris International. This is a company of course best known for selling cigarettes including Marlboros but what has turned the stock around is everything but cigarettes. We've talked before about the the Icos heated tobacco device. Did you know that that now sells more around the world than Marlboro? There's also the Zin nicotine pouches. Those don't even have tobacco. That came via the acquisition of Swedish Match
Starting point is 00:05:29 some years ago. That's a big growth engine here in the US. And what has happened is Philip Morris has reached such scale in these non-cigarette businesses that the margins there are actually now better than they are on cigarettes. So the more people Philip Morris and its CEO can convince to quit smoking,
Starting point is 00:05:49 so long as they're using Philip Morris alternatives, the more money the company makes. Maybe you like that, maybe you don't, but it's been great for the stock. And finally, I'll do one more foodish one and it's Casey's General Stores. These are, don't call them gas stations folks, yeah you can gas up your car there and you've got a convenience
Starting point is 00:06:09 store. Really it's about how much sales the company is driving through those stores. I was shocked to learn that Casey's is actually the fifth largest pizza chain in the US. This is an Iowa based company. They had a recent promotion celebrating 40 years of handmade pies with 40 cent slices. I have not yet had the delight of a Casey slice. Alexis, have you had a Casey slice? I have not. I haven't. You haven't. I'm just looking at their menu. They have barbecue brisket sliders with the Kings Hawaiian rolls.
Starting point is 00:06:45 What are you saying? We're booking a flight to Des Moines. It's probably got some Casey's out there. Let's go. All right. Well, Casey's is selling a ton of food and the stock's doing very well. Those are a few of the names you can read about all of them and the latest issue of Barron's.
Starting point is 00:06:58 By the way, one CEO who returned to the list he's been on many times before is Warren Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway. He has announced his retirement. He will step down at the end of this year. One of the reasons he's back on the list is that his shares have beaten the market solidly over the past one, three, and five years. It's a good way to go out. They've beaten narrowly over the past 10 years and preposterously
Starting point is 00:07:25 since he started out 60 years ago, they've returned more than 5 million percent, 5 million percent, 5 million. I could use a 5 million percent return right now. And that's top CEOs. Let's turn to target Alexis. If I say target lady, does that name mean anything to you? Do you know who Target Lady is? Yes, Kristen Wiig, SNL, very strong Bob.
Starting point is 00:07:50 Bob, like what, head Bob or is that a? Like her haircut. Oh, her hairstyle, yeah, I don't know. They call that a Bob, right? A Bob, mm-hmm. And there's the voice. I don't know where the accent is from, but she gets excited about,
Starting point is 00:08:01 T-Tar-get. The Target Lady character debuted in December, 2005. I don't know how you describe her. She's scanning items at the counter and she always just gets overjoyed about the items she sees. And in the first episode she sees a Garland or a Garland and she has to have one. What is this? A seashell Garland?
Starting point is 00:08:25 Yeah. That's a 99 cents. I don't know how target workers feel about the target sketch. I mean, maybe it's not the most favorable light, but on the other hand, it portrays the enthusiasm people had at a certain time for the company and for the shopping experience there. That's what I think is noteworthy. So maybe this is an arbitrary date, the target lady debut, but if you were a shareholder on the day that that episode aired and you had held the stock for 30
Starting point is 00:08:57 years, Target has traded for that long and longer, you had made 19,000%. 19,000%, this is really one of the great growth stocks of all time. If you don't know about where Target comes from, Alexis, you got my old timey aside music? Oh, yes, right here. ["Target"] Ebenezer Wigglesworth Target, that's not a real person.
Starting point is 00:09:23 There was a New York businessman named George Draper Dayton, and he was living in Minnesota. And he founded a massive department store called the Dayton Dry Goods Company. That was 1902. It was what you might call a big box store. And it was located in Minneapolis and outside of the main business district. And of course it did very well. Dayton's expanded in the 1950s. Minneapolis and outside of the main business district. And of course, it did very well. Dayton's expanded in the 1950s.
Starting point is 00:09:54 It went into discount retail in the 60s and the name Target and the bullseye logo. That's just something that marketers came up with. The company went public in 1967. If you held the stock to 2005, you were thrilled. You've made skaggillions of dollars. Now, if you've held the stock in the post Target Lady era, it sort of depends. Target stock ran even with the market after that for years, then it fell behind the market. Then it went way ahead of the market through the middle of 2001. Just several years ago, you were loving it.
Starting point is 00:10:23 But since then, the stock has fallen way behind and all told if you've held shares since the target lady debut you've made 186 percent which sounds nice, but you could have made 604 percent in the S&P 500 and the worst of that period of course is anything recent if you've held the stock for let's say three Years you're down 29 percent on target. It could have been up 63% on the S&P 500. So investors are losing patience. They want to know what's going wrong and how do we get it fixed. And that's about all you need to hear from me. I spoke recently with my colleague Sabrina Escobar, who did a cover story for Barron's on this subject. Let's hear part of that conversation now.
Starting point is 00:11:07 I read with great interest your story on Target, and I learned a bunch. For the benefit of someone who doesn't really know or think about the difference between Target and anyone else, give me the lay of the land. What is it that has historically made Target different from the types of stores that are adjacent to it. And also what is the magic formula that had the stock doing so well for so long?
Starting point is 00:11:32 You know, you mentioned the word historically, and I think that's important in this context because historically you thought of Target as a higher end retailer. You know, it is still big box. It is still within the realm of, I don't want to say discount, but you could go and you could get a really good price for something that felt a little bit special. The stores were really aesthetically pleasing. You know, you would grab a Starbucks when you walked in
Starting point is 00:11:57 and then you browsed the aisles. For many people, it was almost like an escape. You know, it was their break. And that was an experience that really differentiated it from the rest of retailers. You go to Target, you walk in trying to buy, I don't know, milk, and you walk out spending $200 on random things like beauty or home decor.
Starting point is 00:12:17 And it really did attract a lot of these higher income consumers. In the past kind of three, four years, Target has lost a bit of that sparkle of that enthusiasm of kind of the thing that made it Tarjay as opposed to just Target and they're trying to get it back and trying is the key word here. Are these things that you think that Target did wrong or that competitors did right or a combination or have customer tastes just
Starting point is 00:12:46 shifted? What's going on? There's a lot going on. You know, I think it's a combination of one, the macro, right? I think you can't really discount the fact that a lot of Target's problems started in 2022 when you did have a lot of supply chain issues that all retailers were struggling with, but Target did a particularly troubling kind of issue with inventory management and then inflation because when prices are so high, people are looking for that cheaper price that perhaps if Walmart or Amazon can offer that Target wasn't really offering. So the macro didn't help and then the company has had a lot of missteps,
Starting point is 00:13:19 I think, in terms of managing that macro and trying to just front sheet itself from competitors. I don't know if you've been into a New York city target, but a lot of things are behind, you know, theft devices and, and it's tough. I've definitely noticed that more. If I go in for one thing from like a Walmart, you get these ordinary items that they're locked behind these plastic cabinets and it's super annoying. And I guess if you're going into Walmart and you're just trying to get the lowest possible price, maybe you put up with it.
Starting point is 00:13:48 But if you're going into Target and you're looking for what you're talking about, this greater shopping experience, I could see how that would be annoying. That's exactly it. Cause you're right. That trend isn't pretty broad across many retailers, but with Target, it is about the experience. And the other thing is a lot of Target's purchases are tied to that impulse buy, right? And if you have to wait for somebody to unlock it, then the impulse is gone.
Starting point is 00:14:12 You're like, wait a second, actually, I don't need to buy this. I also feel like maybe I wouldn't want to have a whole discussion with the store staff. Like, hey, we got a guy over here wants to buy underarm deodorant from behind the lock case. He must be a stinker who needs some deodorant over here. Bring the keys. I mean, I don't want a whole scene. Yes.
Starting point is 00:14:28 And the other thing with the experience at Target is that they're, I don't know, struggling to adapt to the e-commerce of it all. A Walmart and Amazon, they have massive distribution centers. And of course they have a much bigger scale. These are huge retailers and, you know, Target does a fraction of their sales, but it's really hard for Target to compete with the scale of Walmart, Amazon, and e-commerce.
Starting point is 00:14:53 And the way that they've built their e-commerce model, some analysts say will make it really hard for the company to continue scaling and continue to compete. And it also is having some repercussions on the in-store experience. That's interesting to me. When I read your story, you might've even described it as a catch 22. Like Target has to go down this road of investing more in e-commerce.
Starting point is 00:15:16 It has to, but it's enormously expensive and the others are so far ahead. And how can it possibly catch up? And by the way, the others that have done this job already for years, Walmart and Amazon and all these, they took a hit to their margins while they were spending all this money. And now they're starting to bear the fruit of all those investments. Whereas Target is maybe at beginning at the precipice of having to go to this period where it's going
Starting point is 00:15:45 to hurt profit margins and investors are, you know, they want it both ways. They want Target to catch up on e-commerce, but they don't want anything that's going to cause a further hit to margins. Does that describe the situation? Pretty much. And like you mentioned, so these other big guys, the way that they built up their e-commerce was, like I said, they have really big distribution centers. A lot of it is automated now.
Starting point is 00:16:05 Target, the way that it handles its e-commerce, most online orders are fulfilled in stores, right? So that means that a store associates are kind of running around the store trying to fulfill these online orders. And there are pros to Target's approach. It's capital light. It didn't take such a big hit to margins when it did expand. And it has helped.
Starting point is 00:16:23 Like I think about 20% of target sales are e-commerce. And Walmart's, for instance, are a bit below that. So they have been able to grow their overall market share in e-commerce. But like I said, this analyst I spoke to was like, I don't know what the future structural gains of this are. There's no quick fix to kind of make this grow and improve it. Because what you do see is that as store associates are trying to fulfill these online orders, they're getting pulled in 5,000 different directions.
Starting point is 00:16:50 The store experience, like I said, takes a hit. You know, now shelves are in stock because there was no time to restock them. Walmart and Amazon both use in-store fulfillment like Target does in things like grocery. But it's not their entire business model when it comes to e-commerce. And Target has gone all in on the in-store fulfillment. So they might have to diversify, but like you said, it's expensive. Thank you, Sabrina. Let's take a quick break. When we come back, we'll hear more about Target from Barclays analyst Seth Sigman. Introducing TurboTax Business, a brand new way to file your own T2 return, all while
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Starting point is 00:17:45 Canada some regional exclusions apply. Learn more at TurboTax.ca business tax. Welcome back to our discussion of target as the target lady called it. What is Alexis? What's the new target in terms of doesn't have to be a department store or clothing, but one where the workers there are super excited to be there and their enthusiasm carries through when you're checking out at the store?
Starting point is 00:18:13 Well, I don't know if the workers are excited to be there, but the consumers definitely are. I feel like the answer is Trader Joe's. There is a good amount of flow of Trader Joe's goods into my household, so I think you must be right about that. That one's a privately held company. They curate everything for you. And so people go there to have a simplified shopping experience.
Starting point is 00:18:33 But I suspect that a main reason people go there is because when they're buying their bananas or their healthy items, whatever they're getting, there's just so much candy there, right? I mean, the store, the store is like half candy, right? Half dessert, correct. They have everything chocolate covered. And the items that fall into your household are all dessert.
Starting point is 00:18:51 It's Trader Sweet Tooth. Okay. Okay, so we heard from Sabrina at Barron's about Target. A few weeks after her story ran, Seth Sigman, a Barclays analyst, published a report on Target that caught my eye, and that report was titled, Alexis. Slipping away.
Starting point is 00:19:07 Is this fixable? Right. Just what we need to know is this fixable. So I reached out to Seth to hear more about that. Let's listen to part of that conversation. Target has really accomplished a lot in recent years, but something today feels like it's lacking. And so the real question here is, can they get back on track? If we go back, there was definitely a tough spot
Starting point is 00:19:28 here in 2016-2017. Stock was around 50 bucks. There was a lot of negativity back then. You had a lot of online disruption. But they made some changes. And they made some really tough decisions. And it was not favorable at the time. stock went down on that. But they emerged from that period and did quite well in 2018 2019. They capitalized on the investments that they were making. They capitalized on a lot of other competitors that were struggling at the time and stock ended 2019 around $130. If you look at 2020 2021 that outperformance accelerated. Stock doubled during that time period during the pandemic to over 260.
Starting point is 00:20:09 And they were really one of the biggest beneficiaries during that period. The concern today is that it's slipping away again. Stock is just under $100. It kind of feels like this is one of the few companies that did well during the pandemic that may not be better positioned post pandemic. And the valuation here today at 13 times earnings is now towards the lower end of the retail sector. And the market is saying something right. That something is wrong.
Starting point is 00:20:33 Something's not going well here. So we and investors are trying to figure out and piece it all together. What's been changing and why has that performance lagged? So is this something that Target is doing wrong in your opinion, or is this a way that the market has just changed unfavorably for target? Is it a mix of the two? Look at the core here, the issue is sales, right? It's the sales under performance versus other companies.
Starting point is 00:20:56 So, you know, this past quarter, their same store sales were down 4% when the dollar stores were positive. Walmart was up mid single digits. The warehouse clubs are growing in up mid-single digits. The warehouse clubs are growing in the mid to high single digits. More recently, it looks like it's been a traffic issue. Over time, it's been a spend per customer issue as well. And it's kind of hard to know,
Starting point is 00:21:16 is that consumer just not spending as much or are they going to other stores, right? But in general, it is a sales issue and the profitability will follow that over time. I think that's part of it. I also feel like it is a sales issue and the profitability will follow that over time. I think that's part of it. I also feel like there is a perception that there are cheaper prices elsewhere, whether that's Walmart or the dollar stores. I don't think it's coincidental that the dollar stores just had one of their best quarters in
Starting point is 00:21:37 years. Target sells a higher mix of discretionary items, stuff that you might want, but you don't need. Whereas Walmart sells a higher mix of needs. So if you have to, you know, tighten the budget a little bit, you might be less inclined to buy those items at Target. Is that correct? And does that play into this? Yeah, I think that's right.
Starting point is 00:21:56 So those discretionary categories are around 50% of Target's business. And they've done a good job of expanding more into consumable categories over time. Grocery, household products, beauty, those have been great success stories for this company, but at the end of the day, their business is still heavily driven by discretionary and that is still one of the main reasons why the consumer goes to these stores. Now they get the benefit when the consumer is in there, but they got to get them in
Starting point is 00:22:24 the store. to these stores. Now they get the benefit when the consumer is in there, but they got to get them in the store. One thing you point out in your report. And I hadn't thought about this, that there was a period where we had a lot of retail bankruptcies. And so maybe around 2018, 2019, some of these stores would close and Target would pick up some of the traffic.
Starting point is 00:22:40 And I guess we're not seeing as many of those bankruptcies now. Is that right? If you go back to this window prior to the pandemic, it was a time when online was growing significantly. Amazon was starting to really disrupt a lot of retail categories. And so it led to a lot of different retail bankruptcies during that time period.
Starting point is 00:22:59 Clothing stores, department stores, and Target was a better, more modern version of that channel. And so they were a winner during that time period. They were also a great alternative when there were some big specialty players like Toys R Us that closed. Target was the destination and it was an obvious one for consumers. There have been fewer competitor store closings to date. But even with those that have closed, it's unclear whether Target is taking as much
Starting point is 00:23:27 as they did in the past. So you had Party City go away, that was $2 billion of business, that seems like it's right in their wheelhouse. You had arts and crafts companies like Joanne Struggle and the Container Store closed, and those are all businesses that should be central to the core customer for Target.
Starting point is 00:23:45 So those are a few billion dollars up for grabs. And so we continue to monitor some of the things that Target may be doing with their assortment and the store experience to try to capitalize on these opportunities. Let me ask you a couple of specific things that I've heard and you can tell me whether they're having a big impact or not. I have not followed this carefully. So I don't know every detail about this, but there was a backlash about target and its stance on DEI issues and you know, folks on both sides have come to
Starting point is 00:24:11 take issue with the company because it had a stance in him, then it moved the other way and so forth. So I always wonder when I hear about this, is it affecting business? What do you see? Has that had an impact or is it difficult to say? This topic comes up a lot and it's a very visible issue, right? Because you can see a lot of this on social media. I think it could be one of the issues.
Starting point is 00:24:31 I'm not sure it's the main issue, but earlier this year, like a lot of other companies, Target scaled back certain diversity, equity and inclusion programs. And it did seem to have an adverse impact on sales in the first quarter. The company mentioned it on the conference call, but they didn't actually quantify it. Look, usually at Google Trends for Target boycotts, it shows a pretty big spike this year, actually similar to what you saw in 2023, and then it comes down. It did seem to get more impacted than other companies. And I wonder if part of that is Target actually talks about being a very emotional brand.
Starting point is 00:25:06 The question is, if there has been an impact, we certainly saw it in Q1, does it linger ahead or can they get that customer back? Has Target fallen like hopelessly behind Amazon and Walmart in terms of the scale of their investments in, you know, online order fulfillment and logistics and so forth or does it maybe not have to be at the same level as them what do you think. I'm not sure it's a level of investment issue what there's always competition but a lot has changed in the last couple of years amazon is just much faster today. of years, Amazon is just much faster today with same day and next day. And yes, Target can compete against that because they have stores that are convenient in local markets. But look, Target did a lot better when those Amazon shipping times were much
Starting point is 00:25:54 longer, and that's changed a lot over the last two years. Walmart is always going to be the lowest price, but they can also now offer faster delivery as well. Their same day option is really gaining traction and they're delivering to a much wider radius. And so they're sort of breaking down that proximity issue they may have had in the past. They're also investing a lot in their own assortment. If you knew Walmart historically as just a place to get low prices, increasingly consumers are finding a better assortment, brands that they didn't see there in the past. And they've added hundreds of millions of skews
Starting point is 00:26:24 to their assortment online. And so you've seen both of these companies evolve. It's not to say that Target can't compete as well, but they have to figure out where do they fit within that. At the end of the day, their business historically has been really driven by product, having product that's trendy and fashionable and at a good price. That's really where they've been able to differentiate historically. Now for the question shareholders are waiting for, and I will read it right
Starting point is 00:26:50 from the top of your report, is this fixable? And I'll point out that you have an equal weight rating, a neutral type of rating on the stock and that you've lowered your earnings estimates recently. If I have that right. But what do you think based on your sort of deep look at the company here? And that you lowered your earnings estimates recently, if I have that right. But what do you think based on your sort of deep look at the company here? Is it fixable and is there any low hanging fruit? Is there anything that can be done in short order to get shares going again? I would say that retail investors always love a good turnaround.
Starting point is 00:27:19 Okay. Just within this space, dollar general and five below last year, Those stocks had rerated significantly on some challenges that they were facing last year and look at how they've rallied this year. They were trading at the low end of retail. We were concerned about the future of those businesses. They really cracked and they've recovered since then. And so there's an opportunity here. We have an equal weight on the stock.
Starting point is 00:27:43 We are concerned about the current direction of the business and a lot of the issues that we talked about. At this level, we do think it is pricing in a lot of negativity already. There's optionality for change as we've seen before. And we balance that in that equal weighting. We in general see a very wide range of scenarios
Starting point is 00:28:02 for this company. We do see a scenario where there's still downside from here. Multiple can still go lower. There's still risk to earnings if they can't get sales back to positive. If it's as simple as some of the basic merchandising fixes we talked about earlier, the macro getting better. You could see a return to positive comps and there could be meaningful upside to the earnings in that situation.
Starting point is 00:28:22 Yeah. You right here, one of the widest range of scenarios in our groups. So if you're buying the stock here and target gets it right, you could do very well in the stock or you could do quite poorly if things continue to slip away for the company, it's, it's hard to know. I guess that's a high risk, high reward is how you might characterize that stock. Is that right? Yeah, that's right.
Starting point is 00:28:40 By the way, just so I know under your coverage, you have a name or two that's that stand out that you've written about that are your favorite names under your coverage right now. I mean, the name we've highlighted is Walmart, right? Walmart's gaining significant share in grocery. They're going to be better positioned to manage through the tariff environment that we're in. They're increasing their share within discretionary categories. They've always been big in those categories, but something is changing in terms of the momentum that they may have there leveraging the marketplace as well.
Starting point is 00:29:09 And then there's growth in their alternative businesses. It's really changing the shape of their P&L and it's giving them an ability to invest back in the business in a way that most other companies can't. P&L meaning profit and loss, meaning they're making good money on advertising and marketing and doing these other things. That's exactly right.
Starting point is 00:29:27 It's helping the profitability of this business and it gives them an opportunity to invest back in the business. But what shareholders like is they're also giving you better earnings growth than they've done historically. Thank you, Seth. And I want to thank Sabrina, target lady and Ebenezer Wigglesworth target. You've left a legacy that how shall I say? Alexis, he got his Wigglesworth.
Starting point is 00:29:49 That's for sure. If you have a question that you'd like to hear played and answered on the podcast, you can send it in and might be on a future episode. Just use a voice memo app and send it to jack.how h o u g h at barons.com. Thanks for listening. Alexis Moore is our producer. You can subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you listen on Apple, you can write a review. See you next week. Alexis Moore is our producer.
Starting point is 00:30:07 You can subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you listen on Apple, you can write a review. See you next week. Alexis Moore is our producer. You can subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you listen on Apple, you can write a review.
Starting point is 00:30:15 See you next week. Alexis Moore is our producer. You can subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you listen on Apple, you can write a review. See you next week. Alexis Moore is our producer. You can subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you listen on Apple, you can write a review.
Starting point is 00:30:23 See you next week. Alexis Moore is our producer. You can subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you listen on Apple, you can write a review. See you next week. Alexis Moore is our producer.

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