Takeaway: Placer Visits Deceleration and Still Squarely Negative. Clothing and Electronic Bearish. Callouts on VFC, JWN, MNRO. Full Chart Set.
Industry: Aggregate YY Visits decelerated again to -4.8% from -3.3% last week (after a slight acceleration last week), with 5Wk Avg visits continuing the downtrend from -2.9% to -3.4%. Visit trends remain squarely negative, with plenty of room to worsen given the overall weakening consumer backdrop. Although Redbook Retail Sales decelerated this week from +4.2% to +4.1%, the divergence between visits and Redbook comp sales remains perplexing. We still think it is likely explained by basket being up, inflationary impact, and also potential trip consolidation/higher units per transaction as shoppers look to be more targeted in their spending. Additionally, with the latest personal income update—which showed personal savings rate decline from 4.3% in June to 3.5% in July—there is a chance lower savings buoyed the comp sales trend (and thus the divergence) seen throughout late July to early August (full chart list below).
- Notable Industry Callouts: Clothing stores saw a decent deceleration from +1.7% to -0.5%, flipping the trend from an acceleration last week. We remain overall bearish apparel. Electronics stores saw a sharp decline in visits from -5.7% last week to -10.0% this week after remaining relatively flat over the past few weeks Best Idea Short BBY. Beauty/ULTA (Best Idea Short) not collapsing, but continuing steady downtrend. Discount & Dollar Stores saw a strong acceleration from +1.1% last week to +4.1% this week.
Companies: Numbers below = YoY Rate of Change from week to week
- Notable Accelerations: The North Face Outlet +22%, Aritzia +19%, DXL Destination XL +11%, Dollar General +10%
- Notable Decelerations: Anthropologie -26%, Vuori -25%, MarineMax -24%, Patagonia -16%, pOpshelf -14%, Johnny Was -13%, The Container Store -13%, RH -12%, PGA Tour Superstore -12%, Hobby Lobby -11%, Ethan Allen -10%
- We also added 19 new locations to our visits tracking data this week: Zara, Sephora, Bottega Veneta, Burberry, Lee Wrangler, Lucky Brand, Tommy Bahama, Vince, Allen Edmonds, Dr. Martens, Johnston & Murphy, Journeys, Shoe Station, Steve Madden, Tory Burch, Fossil, Pandora, Lovesac, Nebraska Furniture Mart
Proprietary Weekly Visits Tracker: Custom samples of specific stores that are not made readily available by Placer.ai.
- Key Callouts: Overall golf course visits saw a positive rate of change inflection as visits accelerated from -12% last week to -2% this week, yet we remain bearish on golf as a whole. Best Idea Short GOLF and Short Bias MODG (see Top Golf deceleration in company charts below).
Recent Winners & Losers:
- Winner: The North Face Outlet (VFC). With visits squarely negative this week, it is slim pickings when it comes to overall winners, which is why we are calling out The North Face Outlet. After a major downward trend since the beginning of the year, The North Face Outlet has seen strong visit trends relative to the overall retail space, with visits up +36% this week vs +14% last week. On a 5Wk Avg basis, visits were up +21% this week vs +15% last week and are up 26% on a YoY ROC basis versus 5 weeks ago—making it the only solid green name on our performance tracker. Slight positive on the margin for Long Bias VFC.
-
- Loser: Nordstrom. Visits at Best Idea Short JWN simply keep getting worse. At Nordstrom, visits were down -25% this week versus -20% last week, with 5Wk Avg visits down -17% vs -15% last week. At Nordstrom Rack, visits were down -12% this week versus -9% last week, with 5Wk Avg visits down -8% from -7%. These trends are on top of the company recently putting up a fake ‘beat’ through costs and credit, highlighted in our note Here. Although JWN is down significantly year to date, we still love the name short side.
-
- Loser: Monro Muffler & Break. After a very choppy last few months, Best Idea Short MNRO visits have trended down consistently over the past few weeks. This past week, visits were down -9% vs 0% last week. On a 5Wk Avg basis, visits finally turned negative to -2% from +1% last week. Furthermore, compared to 5 weeks ago, this week's YoY visits number is 14% on a ROC basis. We remain short MNRO as it is the worst house on a good block. The name is down over 30% since we added to our Best Idea Short list, and we still think there's another 30% downside.
Charts:
- Industry:
- Proprietary Chains:
- Companies:
