Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / Nvidia-Google AI Chip Rivalry Escalates on Report of Meta Talks
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- 0:24Speaker 2: Meta platforms in talks to spend billions on Google's AI chip,
- 0:29Speaker 2: suggesting that the search giant Google has made the case
- 0:32Speaker 2: that it can rival in Vidia as a leader in
- 0:34Speaker 2: artificial intelligence technology. Let's check in with an expert who's
- 0:38Speaker 2: got an opinion there, Mandeep Singh, Senior tech analyst for
- 0:41Speaker 2: Bloomberg Intelligence. Mandy, what are you making this news with
- 0:44Speaker 2: Meta investing and spending money on Google's AI chips? What
- 0:48Speaker 2: does that mean for the space and you know, Nvidia
- 0:51Speaker 2: in particular, because we're seeing some big moves in the
- 0:53Speaker 2: stock market today.
- 0:55Speaker 3: Look, I mean, we know CAPEX numbers are going up,
- 0:59Speaker 3: not just next year, probably through twenty twenty eight, because
- 1:03Speaker 3: Meta has given some sort of a three year forecast.
- 1:06Speaker 3: In fact, Mark Zuckerbert has mentioned that you know, they
- 1:10Speaker 3: plan to spend up to six hundred billion dollars in
- 1:12Speaker 3: capex through twenty twenty eight. So when you are spending
- 1:17Speaker 3: such big sums, you don't want to be dependent on
- 1:20Speaker 3: one supplier, and in this case, Nvidia still has the
- 1:23Speaker 3: best chips. They probably have a virtual monopoly when it
- 1:27Speaker 3: comes to the training. But on the infrincing side, I
- 1:30Speaker 3: think everyone, especially among the hyperscalers who don't have their
- 1:34Speaker 3: own chips, are looking to diversify. And I think I'm
- 1:38Speaker 3: very surprised that Meta is looking to buy something from Google,
- 1:42Speaker 3: given they compete, you know, so furiously on the digital
- 1:45Speaker 3: ad side. But that's really a reflection of the changing
- 1:50Speaker 3: tech stack and how these companies are evolving with AI.
- 1:54Speaker 4: What is it about Alphabet and Google that we did
- 1:57Speaker 4: not realize that they're making so much progress on their
- 2:00Speaker 4: own chips, these TPUs tensor processing units. It does feel
- 2:04Speaker 4: like it's kind of come from out of nowhere. I know,
- 2:08Speaker 4: folks in the tech industry know that Google has been
- 2:11Speaker 4: working on this for a while, but if you were
- 2:13Speaker 4: just following along, it feels like Nvidia had this locked
- 2:16Speaker 4: up and then all of a sudden it's a little
- 2:18Speaker 4: bit more open.
- 2:20Speaker 5: Yeah.
- 2:20Speaker 3: I mean, Google is in the seventh generation of their TPUs,
- 2:24Speaker 3: so clearly they have been working at this for a while,
- 2:27Speaker 3: which is the reason why the TPU has been able
- 2:30Speaker 3: to catch up to mvd's GPU in terms of performance.
- 2:34Speaker 3: But to your point, look, the Gemini model was not
- 2:37Speaker 3: comparable to open Ai and Entropics leadings models up until
- 2:42Speaker 3: the last six months. So that is what has changed
- 2:45Speaker 3: that Gemini as a standalone model has been able to
- 2:49Speaker 3: match up to you know, open Ai, whether it's in
- 2:52Speaker 3: terms of chat, doot functionality, image generation, video generation. They
- 2:57Speaker 3: are a state of the art model. Maybe in terms
- 2:59Speaker 3: of holding agents they still trail. Entropics and Thropic release
- 3:03Speaker 3: a new version yesterday and they still claim that their
- 3:06Speaker 3: models are better than Gemini. But if you are looking
- 3:10Speaker 3: for a state of the art model and the lowest
- 3:13Speaker 3: cost in terms of tokens, Gemini is your best better
- 3:17Speaker 3: And which is what Meta is realizing that yes, they
- 3:20Speaker 3: could use the low cost that Google has in terms
- 3:25Speaker 3: of running their infrastructure and use it to their advantage
- 3:28Speaker 3: in terms of how they are looking to deploy Jenni
- 3:31Speaker 3: on their family of facts.
- 3:33Speaker 2: So, Mandy, you can you give us a sense of
- 3:35Speaker 2: the competitive landscape today for Nvidia. We know, I guess
- 3:39Speaker 2: now we have a better appreciation for Google as a competitors.
- 3:43Speaker 5: Laid out for us and how you think it might
- 3:44Speaker 5: play out.
- 3:46Speaker 3: I mean, the one metric that Nvidia shared on their
- 3:49Speaker 3: latest earnings call was their content per gigawatt is going
- 3:53Speaker 3: to grow over the next few years. And the reason
- 3:56Speaker 3: they said is because they generate the most tokens for
- 3:59Speaker 3: what now, for one gigawad, Jensen said they'll have up
- 4:03Speaker 3: to thirty to thirty five billion dollars of Nvidia chips
- 4:08Speaker 3: being purchased. Think about it. You know, if a one
- 4:11Speaker 3: gigawat costs fifty billion, any company is spending thirty to
- 4:15Speaker 3: thirty five billion. And all these companies like open Ai
- 4:18Speaker 3: has talked about adding up to twenty six gigawatts in capacity.
- 4:22Speaker 3: That really translates into huge revenue for Nvidia just from
- 4:26Speaker 3: one hyper scaler. And that's what I think Meta if
- 4:30Speaker 3: they plan to add ten gigawatts over the next five years,
- 4:33Speaker 3: they don't want to be giving Nvidia, you know, three
- 4:35Speaker 3: hundred billion dollars just for the chips. They want to
- 4:39Speaker 3: diversify and really make sure they're running their infrastructure at
- 4:43Speaker 3: the lowest cost, which is what Google is doing. Google
- 4:46Speaker 3: spend ninety billion dollars in CAPEX this year and guess what.
- 4:49Speaker 3: They have a cloud business. They have trained their new model,
- 4:52Speaker 3: they're doing infrincing at scale. They're serving search and all
- 4:56Speaker 3: their family of appso Genii functionality, so they are really
- 5:00Speaker 3: it very efficiently. They don't They're not spending to thirty
- 5:03Speaker 3: to thirty five billion dollars per gigawatt, and that's what
- 5:05Speaker 3: everyone is seeing now in terms of efficiency.
- 5:08Speaker 4: So you do a great job of explaining this from
- 5:10Speaker 4: a technical point of view, from the technologies point of view,
- 5:12Speaker 4: But for investors who really just understand in video as
- 5:16Speaker 4: you know, AI personified or embodied, is this just an
- 5:21Speaker 4: opportunity to diversify and not rely so much on Invidia
- 5:25Speaker 4: and maybe chase another company whose stairs have not rallied
- 5:29Speaker 4: as much.
- 5:30Speaker 3: I think so. I mean, it's very hard to see
- 5:34Speaker 3: multiple expansion in a company like Nvidia, which was close
- 5:38Speaker 3: to you know, four trillion plus, and I think they're
- 5:42Speaker 3: growing very nicely into earnings. They've given a forecast of
- 5:45Speaker 3: up to three hundred and thirty billion dollars and revenue
- 5:48Speaker 3: next year, so there is embedded growth in there. But
- 5:51Speaker 3: everyone has that scarce from you know, the dot com
- 5:54Speaker 3: bubble in terms of paying too much in terms of multiple,
- 5:57Speaker 3: and that's where you're seeing people really beingservative in terms
- 6:00Speaker 3: of what sort of multiple they pay for a stock.
- 6:02Speaker 3: Like en video, Stay with us.
- 6:06Speaker 5: More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
- 6:12Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
- 6:15Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Cocklay and Android
- 6:19Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever
- 6:22Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
- 6:26Speaker 5: Let's talk some retailers.
- 6:27Speaker 2: We got some retailers bringing up the rear of earning
- 6:30Speaker 2: season as they liked to do. We had Dick spoarding goods,
- 6:34Speaker 2: and we had Best Buy. And let's break it all
- 6:36Speaker 2: down with Lindsay, Dutch Consumer, Hardline Senior, and also Bloomberg
- 6:39Speaker 2: Intelligence joining us from Princeton via that Zoom thing. Let's
- 6:42Speaker 2: start with Dick Sporting Goods. They raised their outlook again,
- 6:45Speaker 2: but I guess investors are focused on I guess some
- 6:48Speaker 2: of the costs trying to turn around foot Locker.
- 6:50Speaker 5: Talk to us about Dick spoorting goods at Lindsay.
- 6:54Speaker 3: Yes, that's right.
- 6:55Speaker 6: The legacy business remained very strong in the third quarter.
- 6:58Speaker 6: Strong back to school, clear demand momentum heading into the
- 7:02Speaker 6: fourth quarter. That's where the raised outlook came. It was
- 7:05Speaker 6: really for the legacy business. But when we look at Footlocker,
- 7:09Speaker 6: you know, the deal closed early September. The outlook for
- 7:12Speaker 6: the fourth quarter is mid to high single digit same
- 7:15Speaker 6: source sales decline. Dix is also looking to expedite the
- 7:19Speaker 6: turnaround there, which means offloading old inventory steep markdowns in
- 7:24Speaker 6: that fourth quarter, which is going to really hurt the
- 7:27Speaker 6: margin as well. So foot Locker, you know, needs a
- 7:30Speaker 6: lot of work. Fourth quarter is going to be weak,
- 7:33Speaker 6: and investors are really looking to see how quickly they
- 7:36Speaker 6: can turn that business around.
- 7:37Speaker 4: Yeah, and probably they'll need to put some money into
- 7:39Speaker 4: it as well to reorganize stores and freshen up the display.
- 7:44Speaker 4: How much of this deal Dick's buying foot Locker was
- 7:48Speaker 4: predicated on Nike and what it was doing with this
- 7:51Speaker 4: shift back to its wholesale channels and away from solely
- 7:55Speaker 4: relying on its direct to consumer offerings and its own stores.
- 8:00Speaker 6: The full looker was, I would argue, over exposed to Nike.
- 8:04Speaker 6: You know, several years ago they had been working that
- 8:06Speaker 6: exposure down. I think Dix will remain focused on being diversified,
- 8:11Speaker 6: just given that their own assortment where they're leaning into
- 8:15Speaker 6: lots of other brands, new up and coming brands like
- 8:18Speaker 6: Hoka and on. They did discuss though that foot Locker
- 8:22Speaker 6: will sort of remain sort of a hub for basketball,
- 8:25Speaker 6: and Nike does have a stronghold in the basketball market,
- 8:28Speaker 6: so I expect Nike to be, you know, a strong
- 8:31Speaker 6: vendor with foot Locker, but Dix is looking to make
- 8:35Speaker 6: sure that they have that right assortment, the newest stuff,
- 8:38Speaker 6: the hottest lines coming from Nike and others.
- 8:42Speaker 5: What is Dick saying about tariffs in their business, so.
- 8:49Speaker 6: You know, Tara, they are going to feel higher costs,
- 8:52Speaker 6: you know, in this back half of the year and
- 8:54Speaker 6: even into next year. Dix has since the pandemic, since
- 8:59Speaker 6: they've been able to see sort of an increase in
- 9:01Speaker 6: demand for their premium assortment. They're not really a huge
- 9:05Speaker 6: discounter for the holiday. They like to sell their product
- 9:10Speaker 6: fully through, so I don't expect them to sort of discount,
- 9:14Speaker 6: and they have taken prices up selectively but certainly not
- 9:17Speaker 6: across the board, and their higher income consumer is sort
- 9:21Speaker 6: of accepting those increases. I think Footlocker is a little
- 9:24Speaker 6: bit of a different story, and you might see that
- 9:28Speaker 6: impact a little bit bigger on that business, just because
- 9:31Speaker 6: they don't have those premium products and they're already going
- 9:35Speaker 6: to need to offload older inventory with steep discounts. So
- 9:40Speaker 6: you sort of have that turnaround compounded with these rising
- 9:43Speaker 6: costs heading into the next year. Something for them to work.
- 9:47Speaker 7: On, Lindsay, I also want to ask you about best Buy.
- 9:50Speaker 4: The shares are up about four and a half percent
- 9:52Speaker 4: right now, and of course this consumer electronics retailer how
- 9:55Speaker 4: to beat and raise quarter. It looks pretty good, and
- 9:58Speaker 4: it looks like it's on the usual string sales of
- 10:00Speaker 4: mobile phones and sales of computer equipment.
- 10:04Speaker 6: Yeah, so best Buy had a strong third quarter, better
- 10:08Speaker 6: as better than expected, as you mentioned. I think, you know,
- 10:11Speaker 6: the stock isn't getting a full bump because there is
- 10:14Speaker 6: definitely some conservatism and a low guide for the fourth quarter,
- 10:18Speaker 6: and investors are trying to figure out, you know, is
- 10:20Speaker 6: it just conservatism, are they just worried about the consumer,
- 10:23Speaker 6: or is there something really there that there's going to
- 10:25Speaker 6: be a slowdown in that fourth quarter. But the business
- 10:29Speaker 6: looks good. Demand looks strong, as you mentioned, computing, phones,
- 10:33Speaker 6: gaming all looking solid, and they're also seeing an improvement
- 10:37Speaker 6: in home theater, which is really big because that has
- 10:39Speaker 6: been a weaker category for the last couple of years.
- 10:42Speaker 6: So if that comes to fruition, I definitely think there
- 10:45Speaker 6: will be strength in the fourth quarter.
- 10:47Speaker 2: So you think about a best Buy, I mean some
- 10:49Speaker 2: of those are big ticket items here, and that would
- 10:53Speaker 2: suggest that they're confident. I think they go to a
- 10:56Speaker 2: part of the K shaped economy, may me that that
- 10:58Speaker 2: is doing better.
- 10:59Speaker 5: Is that a typical best Buy customer?
- 11:03Speaker 6: So best Buy definitely promotions are going to be a
- 11:06Speaker 6: big piece of the fourth quarter. They're sort of leaning
- 11:09Speaker 6: into those promotional events. That's what worked last year, and
- 11:13Speaker 6: I think they're trying to lean into the things that
- 11:15Speaker 6: worked last year for this year. And I do think
- 11:17Speaker 6: the consumer backshop is quite similar when we do that compare.
- 11:23Speaker 6: I also they also recently launched a marketplace, and they
- 11:26Speaker 6: seem to have a stronger focus on marketing and advertising,
- 11:29Speaker 6: and so they're really trying to meet the consumer where
- 11:33Speaker 6: they are and make sure that best Buy is top
- 11:35Speaker 6: of mind when you're shopping for a wide array of things,
- 11:39Speaker 6: not just those big ticket items like TVs or appliances.
- 11:44Speaker 6: So they're trying to have a bigger wallet share with
- 11:47Speaker 6: consumers across the board, and they're leaning on that marketplace
- 11:50Speaker 6: and advertising to do it and then hopefully get you
- 11:53Speaker 6: into the store, and that's where they can bring their
- 11:55Speaker 6: customer service and experience as well.
- 11:58Speaker 4: Did they say anything or give an a indication on
- 12:00Speaker 4: how they're preparing for Black Friday and for the holiday
- 12:03Speaker 4: shopping season.
- 12:05Speaker 6: It sounds like very similar to last year. So they
- 12:07Speaker 6: started their deals about a week ago. They roll out
- 12:11Speaker 6: new deals each week. They are leaning into their paid
- 12:16Speaker 6: membership program, so paid members get access to certain deals
- 12:20Speaker 6: over the regular shopper. But the playbook looks very very similar,
- 12:25Speaker 6: but the demand picture looks better. So hopefully those promo
- 12:30Speaker 6: events can really draw that shopper in, especially since everyone's
- 12:34Speaker 6: already looking for those items.
- 12:36Speaker 5: Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
- 12:43Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
- 12:46Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Cocklay and Android
- 12:50Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever
- 12:53Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
- 12:57Speaker 7: Let's dig into.
- 12:58Speaker 4: Some of the individual companies a little bit more here
- 13:00Speaker 4: with Mary Ross Gilbert. She's a senior Equity and that's
- 13:03Speaker 4: covering the sector for Bloomberg Intelligence. And Mary, let me
- 13:06Speaker 4: start off with Coles because we talk about companies that
- 13:08Speaker 4: are gaining market share. Coles lost a lot of market
- 13:11Speaker 4: share over the past five six years and it's.
- 13:14Speaker 7: Coming back a bit here. What is its strategy?
- 13:17Speaker 4: Is it just that it's kind of simplified its business model, Garlic.
- 13:24Speaker 8: What's happening here is that they've kind of gone back
- 13:27Speaker 8: to the basics. What's something something that Coles has always
- 13:29Speaker 8: been known for, So one is their private brand. So
- 13:32Speaker 8: if you think about some of the brands like so
- 13:35Speaker 8: and Juniors, Lauren Conrad for women, and they brought those
- 13:39Speaker 8: brands back because they actually sacrificed some of those brands
- 13:43Speaker 8: under the prior leadership and replaced them with some more
- 13:50Speaker 8: name brands like Madden Girl, trying to really attract the
- 13:54Speaker 8: junior shopper there. And now that they've brought the private
- 13:58Speaker 8: brands back, they brought back petite sizing, which was really
- 14:02Speaker 8: important to their customer base. Now they're really starting to see,
- 14:06Speaker 8: you know, a recovery. But they're not out of the
- 14:09Speaker 8: woods yet, Scarlett, as you pointed out, I mean, they're
- 14:12Speaker 8: really cycling three years of declines, but we are seeing
- 14:15Speaker 8: encouraging results and given that they actually turned positive in
- 14:19Speaker 8: the latest month, it looks like they could actually reach
- 14:24Speaker 8: a break even in the fourth quarter, even though they're
- 14:27Speaker 8: guiding to a one point seven percent comp sales decline.
- 14:30Speaker 8: So it's very encouraging to see with Coohle's again not
- 14:35Speaker 8: out of the woods. And when you look at what's
- 14:36Speaker 8: going on with so for it's now a two billion
- 14:38Speaker 8: dollar business and as you were sort of highlighting, that
- 14:41Speaker 8: means they really lost you know, over the last four
- 14:43Speaker 8: years something like four to five billion in other categories,
- 14:47Speaker 8: so they have lost market share. We think they're losing
- 14:49Speaker 8: it to off price and some of the value players
- 14:53Speaker 8: in the specialty space such as Old Navy, you know,
- 14:56Speaker 8: a gap brand.
- 14:58Speaker 2: Stock is up thirty three percent today alone to a
- 15:01Speaker 2: huge move up forty nine percent year to date.
- 15:03Speaker 5: So it seems like the market likes what it heard here.
- 15:07Speaker 2: So from a competitive landscape, where does Coles kind of
- 15:10Speaker 2: fit in out there? Mary?
- 15:15Speaker 8: So, Paul Coles is really a value player in the
- 15:17Speaker 8: department store space, so they're really a notch below Macy's.
- 15:21Speaker 8: And they're also located off the mall, which can be
- 15:25Speaker 8: an advantage and because they brought in so for as
- 15:28Speaker 8: a beauty authority, and beauty is a very big and
- 15:31Speaker 8: important and higher margin category for department stores. So that's sorry.
- 15:37Speaker 5: You have to invest in your face.
- 15:39Speaker 8: Somebody once told me, yes, you got to invest in
- 15:42Speaker 8: your face. That's exactly right. Well, the idea there is
- 15:45Speaker 8: that you're getting a repeat customer, they have to come
- 15:48Speaker 8: back and they have to replenish product. But we did
- 15:52Speaker 8: see a comp sales decline because that business is matured,
- 15:55Speaker 8: it's kind of tracking somewhat close to what the the
- 16:00Speaker 8: company is tracking in terms of comp sales. So we
- 16:02Speaker 8: did see a decline in the latest quarterer. So that's
- 16:06Speaker 8: they do have a number of initiatives to try to
- 16:08Speaker 8: bolster that because of course we're seeing gains with some
- 16:12Speaker 8: of their competitors, and we think we'll see that when
- 16:13Speaker 8: Macy's goes to report next week.
- 16:16Speaker 4: Right, and of course that's a big one, right in
- 16:17Speaker 4: terms of department store chains. We'll be looking for that one,
- 16:19Speaker 4: and of course you'll help us break it down when
- 16:22Speaker 4: those cross.
- 16:23Speaker 5: Mary.
- 16:23Speaker 4: I also want to ask you about Abercommie Fitch. It
- 16:25Speaker 4: was the Darling two years ago because the new CEO
- 16:29Speaker 4: found a way to make the brand relevant to a
- 16:32Speaker 4: new audience. It was no longer targeting teenage boys, for instance,
- 16:35Speaker 4: and really targeting young working women.
- 16:38Speaker 7: But it's had a brutal twenty twenty five.
- 16:40Speaker 4: The shares have fallen, I believe more than fifty percent
- 16:43Speaker 4: through Monday's Clothes. A lot of concerns about tariffs perhaps
- 16:47Speaker 4: and maybe even a lack of fresh ideas in terms
- 16:51Speaker 4: of its offerings. When you look at the stock today,
- 16:54Speaker 4: it is soaring up thirty percent on the latest earnings.
- 16:58Speaker 4: What's the narrative with Abercommune Fitch right now?
- 17:00Speaker 5: Yeah?
- 17:02Speaker 8: Yeah, so Scarlett with Abercrombie and Fitch, their numbers came
- 17:05Speaker 8: in better than expected. So the namesake brand, as you
- 17:09Speaker 8: pointed out, I mean that had been double digit increases
- 17:13Speaker 8: over the last three years. So they're cycling those increases
- 17:16Speaker 8: and that's why their sales are coming in less than
- 17:19Speaker 8: expected generally for the whole year and why the stock
- 17:22Speaker 8: is down. But this quarter the comp sales declined. There
- 17:25Speaker 8: was about three point three percent, so that was better
- 17:28Speaker 8: than expected. And when you look at Hollister, though, Hollister
- 17:33Speaker 8: has been coming in ahead of expectations and they've been
- 17:36Speaker 8: posting double digit increases. So as you were talking about
- 17:41Speaker 8: sort of the millennial women who really love and also
- 17:44Speaker 8: the men, but it does tend to favor more of
- 17:47Speaker 8: the women on the Abercrombie side on the Hollister side,
- 17:51Speaker 8: which really caters to jazz that has been on fire.
- 17:57Speaker 8: And so that's what's helping to kind of over come
- 18:00Speaker 8: the weakness that they're seeing at Abercrombie. But also it's
- 18:03Speaker 8: looking like Abercrombie could turn positive in the fourth quarter
- 18:07Speaker 8: with a number of the initiatives that they have in
- 18:09Speaker 8: place going into the holiday quarter, even though they're cycling
- 18:12Speaker 8: some pretty strong gains in the prior year and the
- 18:15Speaker 8: year before that. So there's some encouragement there. And I
- 18:18Speaker 8: think and then of course you have some short interests,
- 18:20Speaker 8: both in that stock and massle in Cohal's, and that's
- 18:24Speaker 8: part of the big bounce back that you're seeing this morning,
- 18:27Speaker 8: is some of that short covering.
- 18:28Speaker 2: What we're not really talking about, Mary, is tariffs and
- 18:33Speaker 2: the impact on these retailers.
- 18:35Speaker 5: What's the story these days.
- 18:38Speaker 8: Yeah, So in the case of Paul, in the case
- 18:41Speaker 8: of tariffs with Abercrombie, they expect to have a sixty
- 18:43Speaker 8: million dollars hit in the fourth quarter, So they are
- 18:47Speaker 8: being hit by tariffs, but they're discounting less. Plus they
- 18:52Speaker 8: have lower freight expenses, and this is something we've been
- 18:54Speaker 8: hearing from most of the retailers, is that lower freight
- 18:58Speaker 8: costs are also helping to bolster margin. So they are
- 19:01Speaker 8: going to be impacted, but probably not as badly as before,
- 19:05Speaker 8: given that they've got an improvement in average price points,
- 19:09Speaker 8: less discounting and lower freight that's helping to offset some
- 19:13Speaker 8: of the tariffs. And remember that sixty million dollars hit
- 19:16Speaker 8: on tariffs for Avercrombie. That's after mitigation efforts, so there
- 19:22Speaker 8: is still going to be an impact. Cole's even brought
- 19:24Speaker 8: it up, which they hadn't really brought up tariffs in
- 19:26Speaker 8: their prior to calls, but they did say that going
- 19:29Speaker 8: into early twenty twenty six, there will be some impact
- 19:32Speaker 8: there for them. And the reason why their margins have
- 19:35Speaker 8: been holding up and coming in better than expected, and
- 19:39Speaker 8: their margins are low, but it's because of the fact
- 19:44Speaker 8: that their mix of business being more private label, which
- 19:48Speaker 8: is higher margin, is helping to bolster those margins.
- 19:53Speaker 5: Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
- 20:00Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live
- 20:04Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple Corplay and Android
- 20:07Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever
- 20:10Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
- 20:14Speaker 2: JM Smucker Company s JM is the ticker symbol. They're
- 20:19Speaker 2: in Orville, Ohio. Stock is trading radion one hundred dollars
- 20:24Speaker 2: to share. It's down three percent today, down eight percent
- 20:26Speaker 2: year to date. It's got a market cap about eleven
- 20:28Speaker 2: billion dollars. Don't look at that company too often here,
- 20:31Speaker 2: but they reported numbers. They lowered the top end of
- 20:34Speaker 2: their four year guidance after the company opted to forego
- 20:38Speaker 2: a planned price increase on coffee in the wake of
- 20:41Speaker 2: tarafreleef from the Trump administration.
- 20:43Speaker 5: Let's get the latest on this name and on some
- 20:45Speaker 5: of the other food companies. Diana Roe set up.
- 20:47Speaker 2: Heying Yeah, consumer staples analysts for Bloomberg Intelligence journings live
- 20:51Speaker 2: here in our Bloomberg Interactive studio, all the way from.
- 20:54Speaker 5: The tenth floor.
- 20:55Speaker 2: From the tenth floor, boy, that's a long walk now,
- 20:57Speaker 2: because you guys used to be just one floor away.
- 20:58Speaker 2: We could just stop on the floor and you guys
- 21:00Speaker 2: come running up to help us out. Okay, talk to
- 21:03Speaker 2: us about Jim Smuckers. This is jelly, this is coffee
- 21:06Speaker 2: maker Smuckers. What's going on the.
- 21:08Speaker 5: Food as well?
- 21:09Speaker 9: You know, pet snacks and cat food. So basically, I
- 21:13Speaker 9: mean it was it was all right. There were some
- 21:15Speaker 9: pull some puts and takes for the quarter. There's some
- 21:19Speaker 9: signs of stabilization, but it doesn't seem that it's there yet.
- 21:23Speaker 9: It's it's similar to other package food companies that we
- 21:26Speaker 9: are seeing in the space. It's always a second half
- 21:30Speaker 9: or the next six month story when it's gonna get
- 21:34Speaker 9: you know, growth is gonna happen, and it really doesn't happen.
- 21:37Speaker 9: So you know, people are starting to lose patients on that.
- 21:39Speaker 2: So specifically as it relates to the tariffs, they, like
- 21:42Speaker 2: a lot of your companies, they're just telling you what
- 21:44Speaker 2: the number is.
- 21:45Speaker 5: So what's their their tariff cost? I guess for the period.
- 21:48Speaker 9: Yeah, so right now they're saying that for fiscal twenty
- 21:51Speaker 9: twenty six, it's gonna be about seventy five million dollars
- 21:55Speaker 9: even include you know, excluding that tariff relief that they
- 22:00Speaker 9: are experienced experience in which is you know the reason
- 22:04Speaker 9: why they're not going to increase prices for the third
- 22:07Speaker 9: time this year.
- 22:09Speaker 5: So they have been raising prices on coffee.
- 22:11Speaker 9: They have been raising prices on coffee. This is a
- 22:13Speaker 9: category that is very passed through category for Smucker. The
- 22:18Speaker 9: problem with that is that competitiveness is a little bit
- 22:22Speaker 9: you know, declining compared to private label, so they're trying
- 22:26Speaker 9: to you know, forego some of the margin you know,
- 22:30Speaker 9: recouped to be able to be more competitive.
- 22:33Speaker 2: Is that what most of the companies are doing, the
- 22:36Speaker 2: package goods companies are they trying to take as much
- 22:39Speaker 2: as they can in their margin and then pass the
- 22:41Speaker 2: rest along the consumers.
- 22:42Speaker 9: Well, it depends on the category. For coffee, this is
- 22:46Speaker 9: definitely normal for them. They tend to be also a
- 22:50Speaker 9: category leader, so it kind of you know, they're they're
- 22:53Speaker 9: you know, they tend to to to say what, you know,
- 22:56Speaker 9: what the prices are going to be. But some of
- 22:59Speaker 9: the other package food companies that we have seen, they
- 23:03Speaker 9: take some margin head they try to are not putting
- 23:07Speaker 9: that on the consumer because they have been increasing prices
- 23:09Speaker 9: for the past couple of years, so they already think
- 23:12Speaker 9: that lasticity is getting there.
- 23:14Speaker 5: Right, So what.
- 23:16Speaker 2: Are these companies like smockers. What are they saying about
- 23:19Speaker 2: the consumer out there? How is the consumer? Are they
- 23:22Speaker 2: switching down? Are they more price sensitive than usual and
- 23:25Speaker 2: maybe switching to store product store brands.
- 23:28Speaker 9: Yes, So we're seeing a private label to get some
- 23:33Speaker 9: market share in the past six to eight months, and
- 23:37Speaker 9: that obviously has been a headwind for packaged food companies.
- 23:43Speaker 9: They're becoming more competitive, not necessarily Smucker, but you know,
- 23:47Speaker 9: we're seeing others such as Campbell's and The Light saying
- 23:51Speaker 9: that they're going to be more price competitive in twenty
- 23:54Speaker 9: twenty six. So we should probably experience a little bit
- 23:57Speaker 9: more of you know, mut at sales growth and margin contraction.
- 24:01Speaker 2: So you also follow the post company, right, tell me,
- 24:06Speaker 2: just remind me about their products.
- 24:08Speaker 5: I mean, that's that's primarily Cereal.
- 24:10Speaker 9: That's Premier Cereal. They also bought their pet you know
- 24:15Speaker 9: category from Smucker that has not done so well.
- 24:19Speaker 7: And they also have.
- 24:20Speaker 9: Some of the you know, like eggs, eggs product side
- 24:24Speaker 9: dishes and the like, and that has been a little
- 24:27Speaker 9: bit on the on the upswing, because again that's another
- 24:31Speaker 9: commodity that they can pass through price increases and they
- 24:34Speaker 9: have experienced that and they have been able to upset
- 24:37Speaker 9: some of the declines from cereal and even pet food.
- 24:40Speaker 2: So if you're a if you're doing coffee or even cocoa,
- 24:43Speaker 2: that's just the commodity and those in commodity, those prices
- 24:46Speaker 2: have been going up because there's been droughts in some
- 24:48Speaker 2: of the coffee growing places and cocoa growing places around
- 24:51Speaker 2: the world. So if you're smuckers, you just pass it along, right,
- 24:55Speaker 2: I mean, it's just if your commodity costs are going
- 24:57Speaker 2: you just got to pass out along.
- 24:58Speaker 9: Yes, and that is obviously the exact.
- 25:00Speaker 5: When coffee comes down. Did they cut the prices?
- 25:03Speaker 9: Yes, they actually do, which is you know, they anticipate
- 25:08Speaker 9: or they hope that, you know, price increases stop so
- 25:11Speaker 9: they can actually become more competitive. But we'll see. It's again,
- 25:14Speaker 9: it's a second quarter, second half of the year story.
- 25:19Speaker 5: Now.
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