Succinct Summation of the Week's Events

Succinct Summation of the Week's Events:

Positives,

1)The February Philly manufacturing index was +18.1, 4 pts above expectations and after the January spike to +44.3 and vs -10.9 in December.

2)The February NY manufacturing index rose to +5.7 from -12.6 and vs +2.1 in December and +20.2 in November and -11.5 in October.

3)Post holidays and the rush to get goods, along with the continued Israel/Hamas truce which has kept the Houthi's quiet resulted in container shipping costs to fall for a 9th straight week by $269 w/o/w to $2,618 for the Shanghai to Rotterdam route. That price is the lowest since early January 2024. The Shanghai to LA cost fell to the lowest since December 2024 at $3,888, down by $504.

4)From Walmart: "Customers are shopping with us more often and buying more items, including general merchandise categories, which were up low single digits in Walmart US and Sam's US for the quarter...Customers continue to respond to our value proposition as we provide lower prices, a broader assortment and greater levels of convenience."

5)From Live Nation: "We are seeing continued strong demand. We're seeing sell-through rates at the stadium level higher than any previous year...So no slowdown at all. Lots of inventory, but equally great demand selling most of these stadiums out or close to being sold out by the time we get to the show dates."

6)From Booking Holdings: "The improvement in room night growth was seen across all our major regions, each of which grew by double-digits in the quarter...At the start of 2025, we continue to see healthy demand for leisure travel globally...Given the importance of travel to consumers and the aspirations of people to experience the world, we remain confident in the long term outlook for the travel industry."

7)From JB Hunt: "I think we're at 31, 32 months of dealing with this freight recession. And so I do feel like we're at the bottom. I do feel like we're at an inflection point." Let's hope.

8)From Carvana: "The strong demand we experienced in the first three quarters of the year continued into the fourth quarter." Though the market focused on margins.

9)From Analog Devices: "while we continue to operate in a challenging macro and geopolitical environment, our first quarter results and outlook for double-digit y/o/y growth in our 2nd quarter builds my confidence that 2025 will be a year of growth."