Inflation has made living more expensive, interest rates are up and geopolitics seem all the more unsettled — from conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza to edge-of-your-seat elections in Europe and, now, the U.S. and big tech helped drive the stock market higher — the S&P 500 is up 16.5 percent to 5,555.74 for the year so far, with AI specialist Nvidia up more than 150 percent — but fashion stocks have been decidedly mixed around the globe. Abercrombie Fitch & Co. shares shot up 83.
“You’ve got an election year, which is going to be the most polarizing you’ve ever had,” Boruchow said. “We’ve done work that shows that in a typical election cycle will see a 150 to 200 basis points slow down in revenue trend, second half versus first half. “We right now are back, at least for the present, into a macro-driven story and thinking about themes like tariff and interest rates and elections,” Siegel said. Inc. and how much they’re willing to pay for an already highly valued but stronger business like off-pricer TJX Cos. Inc., he said.— which is being remade by founder Kevin Plank who is once again CEO and is looking to do more with less — has an “interesting risk-reward” and that the brand is not as “dead” as many believe.
“That sounds very elementary, but I do think it’s both areas, branding and operations — you have to have a long-term commitment to excellence in both of them,” he said. “Absolutely no surprise,” Prendergast said. “They’ve been under a long-term, multiyear reinvention process, both of their brand and of their products. They’ve done a terrific job and now they’re reaping the benefits of it.
Like fashion, the stock market has trends with stockholders chasing one type of company or investment thesis and driving up the price of those stocks before moving on, and there have been no shortage of stock market darlings in recent years.