At Costco, you'll find folks grabbing 54-packs of toilet paper, $1.50 hot dogs... and bars of solid gold.
The bulk retailer started selling 24-karat gold bars last year, and Wells Fargo estimates its gold sales are now bringing in $100M to $200M every month.
Gold prices have soared to record highs this year, up over 16%. The asset is benefiting from its perceived status as a "safe-haven" amid worries about sticky inflation and global turmoil.
If American Eagle has seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of Sydney Sweeney.
The jeans seller posted adjusted earnings of $0.84 per share, ahead of the $0.71 expected by analysts polled by FactSet. It booked $1.76 billion in fourth-quarter revenue, versus the $1.74 billion consensus.
Shares initially climbed more than 5% after hours before paring gains to about 2%.
“Compelling new product collections, supported by fresh marketing campaigns, led to higher demand trends in the quarter,” said CEO Jay Schottenstein.
American Eagle said it’s expecting same-store sales to grow by high single digits in the first quarter.
Marketing controversy has proven to be a powerful mover of denim for AE. In its third-quarter earnings call in December, AE said its partnership with Sydney Sweeney — together with a Travis Kelce partnership — had garnered more than 44 billion impressions. The retailer hit meme stock status last July when it initially launched its “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans” campaign.
As of Wednesday’s close, American Eagle shares had climbed 120% since the Sweeney ad first landed.
The intense drubbing in South Korean stocks, with the benchmark KOSPI falling nearly 20% in its first two trading days of the week following a Monday holiday, represented a serious threat to the hottest AI trade: memory stocks.
South Korea’s market is dominated by two high-bandwidth memory giants: SK Hynix and Samsung.
After Tuesday’s tumble, US investors seemingly said enough is enough: it’s a buy the dip opportunity.
US memory stocks like Micron, Sandisk, Western Digital, and Seagate Technology Holdings are posting massive gains on the day. The advance comes amid positive commentary on demand for memory chips at a Morgan Stanley conference.
Even more interestingly, the iShares MSCI South Korea ETF is up big today despite the KOSPI falling 12% overnight, its largest drop on record. The ETF’s outperformance of the South Korean equity gauge is the largest since 2008, as the financial crisis raged.
The daily performance of these two can differ materially since they trade at different times, and don’t track precisely the same things. US investors are making the bet that a potential break in this momentum trade and the potential for an unwind of retail leverage in South Korean markets be damned, big drops in memory stocks are meant to be bought.
