THE HEDGEYE BREAKFAST MONITOR

MACRO

Employment

Initial jobless claims came in at 401k vs expectations of 410k and last week’s revised 395k.

THE HBM: CMG, RT, PFCB - initial claims

SUBSECTOR PERFORMANCE

The continuing decline in corn prices is fueling the outperformance of the food processor stocks.

THE HBM: CMG, RT, PFCB - subsector fbr

QUICK SERVICE

CMG: Chipotle Mexican Grill was downgraded to Market Perform by William Blair and also to Sell by Miller Tabek. 

CASUAL DINING

RT: Ruby Tuesday is down 12% premarket after announcing poor 1QFY12 earnings last night.  EPS was in line with expectations at $0.05 but company-operated same-store sales decline -4.1% versus expectations of -2.1%.  The company said it now expects EPS for FY12 earnings to be 60 to 75 cents versus the street at 75 cents.  Management highlighted the “aggressive competitive promotional environment with heavy advertising levels”.   We believe EAT is causing RT some problems.

THE HBM: CMG, RT, PFCB - RT POD1

PFCB: P.F. Chang’s was downgraded to Market Perform by William Blair. 

THE HBM: CMG, RT, PFCB - stocks 106

Howard Penney

Managing Director

Rory Green

Analyst