$LB Sinks to 5 Year Lows After Reporting Weak Guidance

Who remembers when retail meant something in America? Year to date, the maker of Victoria’s Secret is down 38% and will sink even lower when it opens for trading today — with the stock set for another 7% drubbing.

Here was their guidance and rationale.

Given co’s below-expectation second quarter sales result, the comp forecast for the third quarter is a more conservative flat to low-single digit decline, versus previous view of up low-single digits. While store traffic, particularly at Victoria’s Secret, has been challenging, co believes a large part of the decline is related to the exit of swim and a pullback in promotional activity versus last year. The online businesses continue to be strong, with 11% growth in go-forward categories at Victoria’s Secret and 16% growth at Bath & Body Works. Stores have high sales productivity and 99% of stores are cash-flow positive. Expect the third quarter gross margin rate to be down to last year, driven by buying and occupancy expense deleverage that will more than offset an increase in the merchandise margin rate.

Analyst take.

TAG notes that While mgmt moderated its EPS guidance for the year, third quarter and full year comp guidance is in line with current market expectations. They believe the co took a more conservative view of the topline potential relative to its original plan due to the comp miss in the second quarter rather (in part due to traffic challenges) rather than as a result of anything it is seeing in the business currently, and the company did not update its August comp guidance (down low- to-mid single digits). In addition, the updated guidance still leaves room for a turn to positive comps in the fourth quarter as compares ease and the headwind of the exit of swim and apparel roll down.

While the process has required investor patience, they continue to see potential for sequential improvement in trends and a turn in the stock as the VS restructuring progresses and new product is introduced at the brand through the back half of the year.

FBR & Co notes the more conservative guide was due to lighter sales in 2Q that could potentially continue into 2H if traffic continues to be weaker (though could improve beyond swim season), but sales should still continue to sequentially improve. While the lowered guide is disappointing, they believe their thesis is playing out as they are seeing improved VS merch margins (better than expected), successful product launches, continued Pink outperformance, and improving VS SSS trends (though a bit slower than expected). They believe LB’s solid brands continue to resonate well with consumers based on our survey work and expect results to continue to improve in 2H; $60 tgt.
LB -6% at five-year low premarket.

I get how Amazon is hurting traditional retailers — but what about this? No one is buying lingerie online, or are they? It amazes me to see how well the market is comporting itself, in spite of all this retail dislocation.

Last night Bill Kristol called out Tucker Carlson for discussing the very real issue of removing monuments of all American forefathers who once owned slaves, saying that Tucker was attempting to rationalize slavery and then later suggested he’d rationalize anti-semitism.

They started by rationalizing Trump. They ended by rationalizing slavery. https://t.co/1BYhLF9YQY

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) August 16, 2017

Next: Luther, Voltaire and Marx were anti-Jewish. So why's it a big deal that the marchers were chanting, "Jews will not replace us?" https://t.co/1BYhLF9YQY

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) August 16, 2017

If you watched the segment, all Tucker did was pose a very serious question, which I duplicated here that drew the ire of several residents.

Should we remove the monuments of anyone who once owned slaves?

Tucker responded last night, calling out Kristol for being ‘glued to social media like a slot machine junkie in Reno. He added that he had once worked for Kristol for 5 years and ‘a generally smart guy’ and a good boss, who was humane and intelligent.

Tucker then asked, ‘what happened?’

‘Hysteria has supplanted rational debate, where the purpose of political argument is to no longer explain your beliefs, but to highlight what a morally upstanding person you are, what a virtuous guy you are, usually by contrast of your opponent, who is by definition, evil. It’s childish, obviously — but for many people it’s pretty tempting. Even 64 year old men with Harvard degrees fall for it, apparently.

Tucker believes, ‘part of the problem is also the medium.’ He criticized the fact that Bill no longer thinks things through like he used to, when he was the editor at The Weekly Standard.

‘Now he just goes on Twitter and he stays on Twitter, all day, every day — dashing off little thoughts and impressions, scoring tiny little points against strangers in cyberspace — keeping obsessive track of his likes and retweets. At an age where he could be spending his time with his grandchildren, Kristol is glued to social media like a slot machine junkie in Reno.’

Watch.

Don’t think that I didn’t see some of you people talking extra greasy in the comments section while I was away — talking about things that don’t apply to barely functional illiterates, such as yourselves.

I haven’t checked the futures yet, but will be catching up to date with all of the great happenings soon. I just got back from my vacation to Maine, which ended up in Newport, RI, hob knobbing with fellow white racists who procure massive amounts of wealth for themselves, without ever thinking about letting some transgender men get some.

Back in la, la land, all of you massive faggots are getting bent out of shape over confederates, as if Robert E. Lee was back from the dead, fixing to sack DC. In the real world, none of this matters, you’re simply being controlled by government and the media — because your brains are small and your emotions are fragile.

I don’t give a shit about confederates, white supremacists, black supremacists, ANTIFA or anyone else in between. Fuck all of you people, twice over, I have business and monies to take from the free stock markets gains being doled out daily.

I cannot see how the left cannot call for George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and others to be removed from the public square, libraries, museums, universities and our currency.

Since the left is out to get all racists, feverishly on the lookout for nazis and alt-right retards, ripping down statues of confederates, why not go to the source of all this racism, eh? America’s forefathers.

Answer the question. Should we take down statues of George Washington? pic.twitter.com/5YbOWIJNS3

— The_Real_Fly (@The_Real_Fly) August 16, 2017

41 out of 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence owned slaves. Therefore, and using the same logic we’re applying to the white supremacists in the streets demanding, err, nothing, we must reject the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and America, basically.

The country is over.

Tucker Carlson lays it out perfectly. I’d like to hear from any left wingers who disagree with my train of thought and explain to me why we should revere Thomas Jefferson.

Naturally, Bill Kristol attacked Tucker for his cogent analysis. Brit Hume came to his defense.

Bill, that's a monstrous distortion of what Tucker said. Did you even see his comments, or are you just working off a screenshot? https://t.co/UQv9XvVSWm

— Brit Hume (@brithume) August 16, 2017

NOTE: Earlier today, the President had it out with the media over this very topic. Here is the full showdown.

The math on these neocon faggots whole heartedly supporting ANTIFA is simple. First of all, white people are old hat. Your days are numbered. All politicians who aspire for public office will pander to minorities from here forth, and then summarily ignore their governance requests once in office. Ergo, showing support for a radical leftists group of self loathing white faggots is easy — because the media and the left love them.

What is a neocon?

In short, a parasite. They feed off stronger entities to further their agenda. Originally, these people were communists, got booted out of Stalin’s Russia, and then managed to infiltrate America and coopt the GOP. Their high water mark was under The Idiot Bush — utter and extreme disaster. These people are devils.

Due to the Trump ascendancy, more or less, they’ve been ejected from power. These people have established themselves as ‘Never Trumpers’ with a goal to unseat the President, which is the same as the left. Because they now share a common goal, the left have grown to like these people, like Mitt Romney, Max Boot, Bill Kristol, Joe Scarborough, Rick Wilson, Sen. Graham, Sen. McCain and a sundry of others. Their Twitter feeds are indistinguishable from leftists and career democrats, for a reason.

They’ve now begun to coopt the Democratic Party. They’re the democrats now, who will attempt to seize power and continue their schemes to place America into a never-ending quagmire of war and Middle East expansionism, which in turn will create new enemies for America and cause them to attack us where we live.

We’ll get pissed off, like after 9/11, and the cycle of SHEER FUCKERY will continue.

Here’s Mitt Romney endorsing ANTIFA.

No, not the same. One side is racist, bigoted, Nazi. The other opposes racism and bigotry. Morally different universes.

— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) August 16, 2017

And here is the all inclusive ANTIFA who hold the moral high ground above racists (hint: ANTIFA is an overtly racist organization).

Serious question for you good folks out there: are these people retarded?

These people gathered together to rip down a confederate monument, which I suppose is great if you’re into that sort of thing. But then after they tore it down, they started to scream at it, spit on it, and then kick it.

Do these people think their tiny feet can hurt an inanimate object made from metal? I sat here, gazed at this video for a good 2 minutes, and came away utterly baffled by the actions of these psychopaths. This is a pool of genetically inferior people gathering together for the explicit purposes of demonstrating their ineptitude as civilians in this country — an utter embarrassment of extreme proportions.

On the issue of confederate statues being torn down: I’ve never been a big fan of the confederates, but this has a feeling of malice, northern people instigating trouble with southerners, poking them in their chests, making them relive their loss over and over again. Nothing good will come from this antagonistic behavior.

As for me, I’m still on vacation and depart from Main today, en route to Rhode Island. I’ll be back at the turret on Thursday.

I’m not big on jingoism, but nationalism is just fine. It’s actually necessary when competing versus any foreign government — because they themselves are likely very nationalistic. In other words, if the people of America do not possess an overt love of country, then it cannot exist. If its own citizens cannot openly express love for their country, then who the hell will?

Think about what I just said, because I know many of you do not love America and I will not judge you for it. The problem with not loving America is that you’re likely confusing two totally separate entities, one being the people, the culture and the lifestyle, the other being the greedy government devils.

Often times I find myself lamenting over the many things representative in America, but most of that is the fault of government, not its people. Sure, some of you leftards piss me off when we discuss politics. But who really talks politics in real life? I mean, really?

Conservative talk show host, Michael Savage, makes some very sober assessments regarding racism in this country, and how it cuts both ways. He drives home the point that being a white conservative doesn’t mean you’re a nazi or a racist. Moreover, he reminds people of the hatred and the whirlwind sowed by Obama and Holder, which was rampant for 8 years, are coming home to roost now.

Remember, there are two very different schools of thought in America. By catering to just one side for 8 years, with the help of a very biased media, Obama created so much pent up anger and discord amongst the right wing, you’re now seeing that manifest in very ugly ways today.

Sure, Hollywood and NYers loved Obama, but, geographically, he was loathed just about everywhere else.

“Are all those who fought and died for America, because they put America first, are they all Nazis now? Are all those crosses at military cemeteries, are they now symbols of racism?”

Watch.

What do you good folks think about that idea? Just because Google is an information monopoly with an ultra-leftist bias that openly discriminates against alternative viewpoints, should we call for the government to regulate them?

This is a damned if you do, damned if you don’t scenario and the only reason why anyone would want to regulate Google would be to overtly hurt and diminish them. Although I’m not a fan, whatsoever, of government, something needs to be done with Google. Just based off the firing of James Damore, you see how fucked Google is with their Orwellian way of thinking.

Tucker Carlson discusses that and how right wing personalities on Youtube are being censored. Just last week, YT nuked ten years worth of vids from Lee Stranahan and Paul Joseph Watson has been complaining about his demonization and censorship on YT for months.

Watch.

Thoughts?

See what you leftists faggots are doing. You’re so obsessed with fucking Nazis and white supremacists being tossed off cliffs, fired from their jobs, and doxed for out of spite, you’ve dug your own graves in the process.

Now the government fuckers are going to find you and throw you into dank prison cells for talking shit about Trump. I think it’s fair to say, free speech has never been more dead in this country. I find myself restricted from what I wanted to say, more and more, with each passing day. iBankCoin’s Facebook account was annihilated by Facebook after I posted a picture of Chuck Schumer with Putin.

Now it’s your turn to feel the wrath of literal government dick suckers.

While the tech community are filled with leftists scumbags, the government is an oppressive beast and doesn’t give a shit about your gay rights or healthcare coverage for your dream sex change operations.

Via The Hill:

The Department of Justice has requested information on visitors to a website used to organize protests against President Trump, the Los Angeles-based Dreamhost said in a blog post published on Monday.

Dreamhost, a web hosting provider, said that it has been working with the Department of Justice for several months on the request, which believes goes too far under the Constitution.

DreamHost claimed that the complying with the request from the Justice Department would amount to handing over roughly 1.3 million visitor IP addresses to the government, in addition to contact information, email content and photos of thousands of visitors to the website, which was involved in organizing protests against Trump on Inauguration Day.

“That information could be used to identify any individuals who used this site to exercise and express political speech protected under the Constitution’s First Amendment,” DreamHost wrote in the blog post on Monday. “That should be enough to set alarm bells off in anyone’s mind.”

When contacted, the Justice Department directed The Hill to the U.S. attorney’s office in D.C.

The company is currently challenging the request. A hearing on the matter is scheduled for Friday in Washington.

“In essence, the Search Warrant not only aims to identify the political dissidents of the current administration, but attempts to identify and understand what content each of these dissidents viewed on the website,” the company’s general counsel, Chris Ghazarian, said in a legal argument opposing the request.

The web provider published a purported search warrant issued by the Superior Court of the District of Columbia that asks for records and information related to the website and its owner, along with information that could be used to identify subscribers of the website.

This includes “names, addresses, telephone numbers and other identifiers, e-mail addresses, business information, the length of service (including start date), means and source of payment for services (including any credit card or bank account number), and information about any domain name registration.”

The warrant, dated July 12, says that authorities will seize any information constituting violations of D.C. code governing riots that involve individuals connected to the protests on Inauguration Day.

More than 200 people were indicted on felony rioting charges in connection with the protests in Washington on Jan. 20.

Give hate speech a chance. I used to be an oppressive bastard, banning people for looking at me sideways. Now look at me, a literal free speech maven, permitting all sorts of oddballs post on the site without restrictions. Gayfags needs to permit nazi free speech and stormfags needs to permit ANTIFA menace them with promised to break their clavicles, if we’re gonna get back to making America great again.

PS: My vacation ends tomorrow night.

Kenneth Frazier, CEO of Merck Pharmaceuticals, resigned from the President’s manufacturing council today, citing Trump’s lack of personal indignation to the events in Charlottesville as a reason.

pic.twitter.com/a1PNQZism5

— Merck (@Merck) August 14, 2017

Frazier joins Elon Musk in deciding to leave the council, which has triggered the President to attack him on Twitter.

Now that Ken Frazier of Merck Pharma has resigned from President's Manufacturing Council,he will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 14, 2017

Just to recap, Frazier was a good guy up until today’s resignation. Now he presides over an evil corporation who sells drugs at ‘ripoff’ prices. Did I say ripoff? I meant to say RIPOFF.

Here are the other execs on the President’s council.

Andrew Liveris, The Dow Chemical Company
Bill Brown, Harris Corporation
Michael Dell, Dell Technologies
John Ferriola, Nucor Corporation
Jeff Fettig, Whirlpool Corporation
Mark Fields, Ford Motor Company
Ken Frazier, Merck & Co., Inc.
Alex Gorsky, Johnson & Johnson
Greg Hayes, United Technologies Corp.
Marillyn Hewson, Lockheed Martin Corporation
Jeff Immelt, General Electric
Jim Kamsickas, Dana Inc.
Klaus Kleinfleld, Arconic
Brian Krzanich, Intel Corporation
Rich Kyle, The Timken Company
Thea Lee, AFL-CIO
Mario Longhi, U.S. Steel
Denise Morrison, Campbell Soup Company
Dennis Muilenburg, Boeing
Elon Musk, Tesla
Doug Oberhelman, Caterpillar
Scott Paul, Alliance for American Manufacturing
Kevin Plank, Under Armour
Michael Polk, Newell Brands
Mark Sutton, International Paper
Inge Thulin, 3M
Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO
Wendel Weeks, Corning

Markets are set to surge today. I will be traveling all day, figuring out how not to fall off sides of mountains. I’ll check back in with your lads this evening.