Strap in. When Jeff Macke is driving the conversation, you need to pay attention. The wisdom, wit, and one-liners fly by fast.
While other seven-year-olds spent their weekends playing with Lincoln Logs and Wiffle Ball, Jeff was riding around town in a station wagon with his dad, visiting Target stores. He wasn’t just tagging along—he was analyzing end-caps, product presentations, and the cleanliness of the floors and staff.
Every month, I do a monthly Town Hall for my premium members at Macke's Retail Roundup+. This is meant to be a chance for my members to interact directly with me. I'll go over my portfolio, talk about my recent trades, and answer your questions.
As the first quarter slogs to a close with stocks down for the year and the outlook for the rest of the year "murky" at best ("horrifying") at worse it's time to start taking inventory, as they say in the retail industry. There are trades to be had but the real money is going to be made investing at a good price and letting the investment work. It's sort of a waste of time to call Generational Bottoms, there just enough of them. Consumer facing stocks have just been beaten senseless for 3 months; it's time to start looking for opportunities.
Current Situation: The Pain is Real
I don't need to beat it to death again but the pain has been real. Despite decent trailing earnings there's been a lot of caution from the merchants, mostly based on the impact of uncertainty from tariffs and trade wars. We still don't have details on tariffs, and won't until next week if then, but we're already paying for it in sentiment. Consumer Confidence as measured by outlook for next 6 months just hit 12 year lows. Americans are mad and afraid; typically not times when we spend a lot of money.
Walmart kicked off earning's season by warning of a cautious...
Bottoming is best thought of as a process rather than a moment. The all look different but when you see a correction it usually hits these stages:
A negative catalyst appears, usually when stocks are expensive. Expensive stocks get sold. Investors "rotate" with growing speed.
The threat seems larger. Inevitable. The rush to the exit picks up pace in stocks. Everyone's running the same playbook and "sell" is the only defensible call as every group sells-off.
The tide turns, slowly then all-at-once. The risk becomes quantifiable. Bad news becomes more company specific. Selling slowly dries up as (dirty truth of investing here): The Optimists Always Win.
That was the case to a much greater degree the greatest bottom in the history of consumer discretionary stocks in March of 2020. The group was down 35% in just over a month. Stores were shutting down day after day, leading to pretty much the entire economy being shutdown for the foreseeable future.
It was a really hard time to start buying consumer discretionary stocks. Like a Trade...
