Athletic Footwear and Apparel sales continue to improve following Sandy related disruptions in early November. In addition, the setup for both footwear and apparel gets increasingly more favorable through year-end.
Pricing remains healthy up MSD-HSD, reflecting the increasing mix shift towards basketball footwear in light of last year’s NBA strike as well as efforts to offset apparel costs.
The key brands of note continue to be Nike, Brand Jordan, Adidas, Under Armour, as well as VFC’s The North Face. We remain positive on the space and the R&D driven cycle benefitting key players – NKE, FL, and FINL (long); UA (short near-term).