Spotify Rallies on Subscribers; Hermès falls on China Sales | Stock Movers

Let's begin with a little Procter and Gamble. You know it, maker of Tide detergent, Pampers, diapers, Crest toothpaste. Well the stock is up two and a half percent here pre-market. Sales and profits last quarter beat expectations driven mostly by improved sales volumes. So organic revenue, which is a key metric rising 4% in the fourth quarter, in the first quarter rather. It is the fastest growth P&G has seen in three years and it was driven by P&G's limited price hikes. So saying it's sort of found the right recipe if you will where it's raising prices but not so much that it's turning off, you know, consumers who we know were dealing with higher prices just down every aisle of the supermarket. Um, so we had Pepsico showing weakness in its North American business recently. McCormick, which is another one of those uh, you know, consumer staple companies got a boost uh because more people are cooking at home. So it's sort of a mixed bag out there for these kinds of companies, but Procter & Gamble a winner uh today.

Stock over the last five years has grown about 5% per year. That's it.

Nice. But you throw... But you know what? That's solid.

No, I mean the market's... the market, but the overall market's about 13%. so it's well, yes, it's under...

But it gives you a dividend yield of about almost 3%. So you put that on there. So there you go.

All right. Let's move on to the music streaming giant Spotify. I'm just taking a look at uh what the stock is doing right now. It so it it's saying that uh paying subscribers increased 2% to hit 306 million last quarter. That was slightly better than expected. Monthly active users during the same period up 1% over a year ago. That was just in line. Total revenue up 16%, slightly missing uh expectations.

Do you have a a stock quote there, Paul?

Well, it's up about 7% today.

It is. Okay, nice. Oh, it is. I see it.

But it's down about 9% year to date, so it's breaking even.

Sigh. This stock movers is going down in flames.

What?

Yeah, exactly.

We still we still got plenty of time to go.

Wait a minute. Well, you want to talk about going down in flames?

We care about Spotify because it's one of our great leaderships, particularly on the Pacific rim. Next.

Yes. It really it is.

Hermes. It this stock is down 41% year to date. It is on track for its worst annual performance since it listed back in 1993. Now, this is the Birkin bag maker. This is the Kelly bag maker.

No, this is the tie maker. All my ties, which I don't wear ties anymore, but my ties were...

Well, I've seen one or two Hermes pieces on Mr. Tom Keen, might I say. Over the... Where are your ties this morning?

But uh disappointing sales in the third quarter. Basically no growth in China, which was a big money maker, right? for years for these luxury brands. And also you've got the war in the Middle East and so that's disrupting shopping at places like Dubai. Um, so there used to be long wait lists for these Burken bags and what have you, but now they're saying you've got second-hand sales platforms selling them. They're more easily available, I guess.

They're they're doing well compared to other luxury people. But the bloom is off the rose and it's China. I mean, it's it's the elephant

Yeah. Undoubtedly.

in the room. They actually did pretty well in America. and the leather stuff that nobody can afford, that that did well. But there's some, like, like I noticed scarves didn't do well. Didn't do well. Didn't do well.

Okay. I wonder if scarves are a generational thing, I don't know. But I feel like you're helping them out here in the U.S., Tom.

We're we're working at it each and every day.

The family still owns 67%, two-thirds of this company the family still owns.

Wow.

And the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund has a chunk as well.

Yeah.

There you go. Makes sense.

Is that it? I mean, just one more?

Well, let me just throw in Lam Research because it's down 9%, up 52% year to date. Fifth straight record quarter, sales up 54%, profit margins at an all-time high. So why do we, why are we unhappy? It's the outlook, people. It's the outlook. Not as good as Wall Street expected.