Does Howard Penney have a crystal ball? No. He’s just one of the best (if not the best) restaurant analysts on Wall Street.
Earlier this week, Malcolm Knapp released sales results for January, estimating that same-restaurant sales and guest counts declined -2.6% and -4.4%, respectively, versus January 2013.
In other words, bad news for restaurants.
As you can see in the HedgeyeTV video below from a month ago, Penney was all over this bearish trend and well ahead of Old Wall consensus in making his call.