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are you still of the view that this can be a faster top line growth story over time?
the new store performance is better than expected, and I think you said on the commercial side, but anything else driving
you do not necessarily think domestic comps slow. As you lap that inflation because of the comp waterfall and share gains
we had been accustomed to AutoZone significantly outperforming the others. And now that spread is a bit more narrow
do not these jobs still get done? And would not that imply the commercial business should have accelerated as meaningfully as the weather improved
was anything unique about the operating expense performance in the second quarter
Is this a reflection of an arms race within the industry where there's just an opportunity to put more operating expense in the ground
Can you provide a sense of how the arc of the LIFO charges will look from here?
do you think the cost of doing business within the aftermarket has gone up such that in the past, AutoZone might have been able to grow
what does the arc of that investment cycle look like? Can you help frame the market's expectations on how long this is going to weigh
what is the average commercial sales per week in those locations, versus stores that are not currently being serviced by a hub?
how did the shift in how you measure your same-store sales impact your comp this quarter?
And does this undermine the gross margin outlook if you have to invest more of the proceeds than you are actually getting
How do you expect to be able to drive this momentum next year when maybe the conditions won't be as favorable?
Can you anchor the market to a longer-term expectation?
Do you think you have appropriately embedded enough margin flexibility in your guidance in order to compete effectively
How are you looking at this now, especially in light of the challenges
How much are you willing to invest in order to improve the performance of those categories?
how much pricing will be seen across the industry
given that new membership growth, is a critical driver of your overall same store sales growth
Did you size the potential savings from things like prepaying your card or line breaking from your associates?
under your tenure, Costco has had a greater willingness to move with speed, embrace technology
You mentioned that you would expect your renewal rate to continue to fall as some of the digital sign-ups accrete
it seemed like you were sending a reminder that you will soon lap this outsized growth from precious metals
With core on core margin being down modestly this quarter, can we take that as a sign that the recent string of margin
Have you, a, expanded the aperture of what Costco is now willing to sell or what the member is willing to buy from Costco?
Has Dollar General entered a new era where it needs to use promotional activities
are you seeing any evidence of that? Is that what is driving your decision to be a bit more promotional?
You've now settled into a few quarters in a row of 2% comp. Is this as good as it's gonna get?
does that mean that you expect to be able to realize the 6% to 7% operating margin maybe as soon as next year, or, alternatively, your long-term range should be recalibrated above 7%
To what extent is Dollar General either willing or needing to make further investments in price and wage rates in order to sustain this comp momentum
Have you seen enough progress with improved execution as well as the mitigation in shrink for you to see line of sight to restoring double-digit EPS growth in 2025
you are pointing out that the gross margin should be down year over year in the 4th quarter.
will 2027 be a year in light of all that where you think you can generate the algorithm?
are you willing to invest more in labor or other operating expenses to accelerate and bend the curve
this balance between restoring positive traffic versus maintaining the profitability of the business?
how have you factored in reinvestment back into the business? Is that going to be more or less static?
what is going to drive you to the top end of your earnings expectation for the year versus the bottom end?
To what degree is that as a result of some of the legacy households pushing back on the price increases that have been taken in the last couple of quarters?
there's a perception out there that as you have more fully rolled out some of your tariff mitigation strategies, including raising price points across your assortment that the consumer has pushed back
what will be the offset that Dollar General is able to achieve in the back half of the year such that you're able to hold the guidance consistent
is that wrong? And b, can you give us a sense of what your overall sourcing portfolio looks like right now such that when the reciprocal tariffs do come out
is there anything that should stand in the way for us to simply add the impact of these one-time items to your base earnings next year?
the comparisons for the Industrial business get meaningfully more challenging as you move through the back half
what do you think the key unlock is for the sales to the independents to accelerate from here?
should we be modeling pretty consistent top line performance in the second quarter with what you experienced in the first quarter
is there a trade-off for GPC corporate in the Auto segment where you have to balance the free cash flow generation of the North American auto business versus the top line growth
do you think it would be prudent to take down the profitability of the North American auto business as a manner in which to stabilize or maybe improve the overall market share
it does appear that market share took a step back in the fourth quarter, largely related to the independent business
You raised the top end of your sales outlook, yet lowered the midpoint of your earnings outlook
what is different about GPC that it's not experiencing as much inflation? And presumably, it's not because you are not passing along the price increases
would you be able to accelerate the deployment of your strategies and the successful execution of those initiatives if you were to have more of a streamlined organization
why are you lowering your top-line outlook for this segment in light of those first two factors?
if you put aside both the potential top line impact, as well as your mitigation efforts, you simply size the cost impact to your cost of goods?
Is there any evidence that they are trying to buy as much inventory as possible at the current time in order to get ahead of what could be some cost increases
how should we model or think about the sensitivity of the earnings, for GPC to the top line? Are there other elements of the P&L
why has the company's North American business, not only in the automotive business, but also seemingly on the industrial side, been losing market share?
how much of that do you think was accelerated market-share gains versus the home improvement market accelerating
the factors that led to 117 basis points of gross margin pressure excluding the tariff refund
is there a point at which you start to change either resource or capital allocation decisions?
Have you given any consideration to lowering your guidance in light of the rise in interest rates
do you think that's going to linger beyond the first quarter? And are you seeing signals of that behavior happening in anywhere beyond just the roofing category such that it could lead to more vola...
If you had perfect insight that housing turnover was going to remain muted through 2027, would that change any of your capital allocation priorities
can home improvement demand recover without some assistance from either an increase in underlying housing activity or a reduction in interest rates
has The Home Depot increased its fixed cost structure such that it's now experiencing deleverage as sales are under pressure
Are these calls driven by something that you are seeing that is changing in the home improvement market
the decision to reduce promotional activity during the quarter was tied to the tariff situation
there could be $50 billion of deferred demand in home improvement if we just simply apply Home Depot's market share
How is the Home Depot approaching that from a pricing standpoint?
What market share assumption have you embedded into your twenty twenty five outlook?
There's been a lot of focus on the impact that the government efficiency measures and or immigration policy implementation could have on the US consumer
are you looking at the multi-year home improvement outlook as the longer that rates remain elevated, the more that homeowners are deferring projects and as soon as rates come down, that will lead t...
what percentage of sales for the Home Depot could be subject to tariffs in China, and, what about from other countries?
Kroger can be the best version of itself without making any radical changes
can you contextualize the absolute dollar level of investment that was made in the fourth quarter in order to stabilize the market share?
Your CapEx is going to be similar to what it was last year. Free cash flow is going to be down a bit. So a, can you explain the moving pieces there?
how did you think about the risk of leaning so heavily on third-party providers to fulfill a core competency, which is to interact with the customer at the point of delivery
You raised the ID outlook. You lowered your tax rate. You took up the low end of both your operating profit outlook and as well as your EPS outlook. So what changes from a margin or below-the-line ...
How much further can you drive improvement from these actions while maintaining a margin rate that's been around 3.1% for the last few years?
you stepped up price investments on the 2,000 items, yet what sounds like the selling margin was positive. So where are you finding the offsets
perhaps there's a case where the growth in e-commerce as well as the growth in pharmacy are cannibalizing the center of the store. If this continues, is there a point at which the net result of thi...
if we look at your ID sales guidance for this year, you're basically assuming that volumes are flat to probably even down given that your inflation expectation along with what will likely be outper...
As of the second quarter, Kroger had made a point in its presentation that it was on track to deliver more than 20% media growth this year and that line was removed this quarter. So is it right to ...
what do you need to happen in order to drive The Kroger to achieve the sales piece of its long-term algorithm in 2025? This year, there’s been a contribution from the GLP-1 drug, some storm-related...
How are you thinking about the broader impact of artificial intelligence on home improvement?
If 2026 turns out to be meaningfully better or worse than that range, what internal and external key performance indicators would have told you that first, and what is that KPI saying today?
is that sufficient enough to be able to harvest a very suitable return on these investments that you've been making?
how does Lowe's ensure that all of the heavy lifting associated with integrating these assets that are being brought together does not interfere
is it just becoming more expensive to maintain market share given all the changes that have taken place?
Where do some of the large ticket remodeling categories for Lowe's stand today versus where they were in 2019
is this a signal that O'Reilly either sees the competitive landscape or the customer consolidation changing
is it your expectation that, particularly on the DIY side, there will be an acceleration in units
Is the only difference this year versus last year the visibility you have into inflation and like-for-like pricing?
What's the risk that the same scenario plays out this year?
what conditions would be necessary in order for O'Reilly to restore its SG&A per store growth back to the 2% range
overall, is this as good as it gets that O'Reilly can do a mid-single-digit comp under the right conditions. It's just a -- it's a different model than it's been in the past
has the cost of doing business within the auto aftermarket, you simply increased perhaps as a result of a lot of the weaker marginal competitors having already gone away
does that give you pause as we move throughout the rest of the year, either in the consumer's ability to absorb all this inflation
if you simply ramp the tariffs that are in existence today through the rest of the year, what would the potential impact on your sales and earnings be
Does that put O'Reilly at a disadvantage in an era of what could be hyperinflation within the category?
What drove your decision to guide your comp to two to four this year versus often guiding three to five at the outset of the year
How should we expect the flow through on upside to the comp guidance to to hit the P and L?
You raised your top line expectation and again, probably just flowing through the first quarter outperformance, you simply pointed to the high end of your EPS range.
we're all trying to figure out how much of the first quarter performance was due to the actions that Target has taken versus exogenous variables like tax refunds.
A lot of the elements of the plan are not that dissimilar from what we saw at Target around 10 years ago. So what is different and what structures are being put in place in order to ensure that the...
How amongst those guardrails are you thinking about the commitment to the dividend and the importance of that to your certain shareholders
we really haven't seen it trend ally to an overall improvement in the performance of the business. So the obvious question is, why not?
can you put into context and quantify the investment either in margin and/or capital that will be necessary for Target to close the performance gap
how does the succession plan that has been put in place bring about the change that would improve the trajectory of the business?
is it right to characterize the challenge that Target has experienced in the last few years is that other retailers have caught up
how would you frame the downside or at least the potential that the guidance has sufficiently been derisked?
the tariff situation remains quite fluid. Based on what you know today, how did you factor that into your guidance for 2025?
when are we going to -- when is it realistic for outsiders to start to see that play out in the P&L?
does Target need to do anything different or invest anymore to increasingly be among that consideration set and position itself in an even better way to generate more consistent performance?
would you be willing to trade some of the upside in those areas for even more consistency from quarter-to-quarter?
how should we think about what a realistic comp number over the intermediate term is for Tractor Supply's business
how long do you think it will take to effectuate an improvement within the pet category. And if we assume that Tractor Supply, the updated algorithm may be more like 2% to 3%
under what conditions, economic or otherwise are necessary in order to restore the comp growth back to 3% to 5%, what's a reasonable time frame for that
any changes you're seeing around the consumer behavior lives in the life out here environment. Especially because the perception is that trends have slowed quarter to date
is the nature of the inflation that Tractor is going to benefit from in the back half of the year going to be different than the market has been accustomed to
you have only embedded the tariffs for the next ninety days. But to get to the midpoint of the full year guide, you have to assume around a 4% comp increase
should we interpret the 1% to 3% comp outlook as conservative or what would stand in the way of potential upside from that
have you increased your promotional activity or your expected promotional activity in response to what you have seen
Should we expect traffic to be down over the next few quarters in light of everything you're seeing?
Are you finding that some of the momentum is starting to fade where consumers are shopping more around events and in between those periods, got a little quieter?
what would cause your comps to go negative outside of the macro? And if you maintain your momentum, how should we think about the flow through
does that mean that the cost of doing business within the beauty category increases, which should diminish the potential that Ulta will be able to nail its margins over time
what are you thinking about in terms of incremental price investments from here in order to drive the top line
it's just going to be more difficult to achieve that double-digit operating income growth outcome
How did you factor that there could be other unknowns into your outlook this year
the timing of this leadership succession is a signal of an inflection point
How do you dispel this concern and make the case that this is a one-off rather than beginning of a trend
would you consider the current level of tariffs to be elevated
Now is Walmart entering a phase where there's just simply more economic sensitivity
What is Walmart finding out about its ability to drive steady growth in the core business while reinvesting back
we should be modeling gross margin degradation in the back half of the year. So a, is that true?
it may be at the point at which it can no longer lower promotional activity without it having some impact on the sales. Is that the right interpretation
How much price have you seen being taken across the industry thus far and how much price has Williams-Sonoma taken across its various brands?