We are hosting our 7th Annual Retail Round-Up Conference this week on April 14th & 15th including 29 companies across our Department Stores & Specialty Softlines coverage (& Horvers’ Broadlines / Hardlines universe). Ahead of our Virtual Conference, we thought value-add to summarize key macro/micro takes, Boss’ Barbell Approach & 3-Wave Retail Recovery, and Company/P&L specific meeting primer questions.

Near-term & Stock-Specific: We see timing of this year’s Retail Round-Up as a potential “Next-Leg Catalyst” for retailers to address current strength of the US consumer, post-pandemic planning, potential market share capture, structural inventory/merchandise margin opportunity, and permanent SG&A efficiencies. Further, we see the combination of (i) stimulus (direct checks, unemployment benefits, child tax credit), (ii) favorable Spring weather (WTI forecasting a “Good News Spring” with weather shifting notably warmer YOY in 2H April and May), and (iii) easy compares lapping negative 35-40% average March/April comps with arguably the best BTS setup in a decade on tap likely driving positive sentiment and mgmt commentary on the consumer/retail recovery at our conference. Digging deeper – our recent fieldwork points to the largest 1Q top-line upside (relative to current Street estimates) at BURL/ROST/TJX in Off-Price, GPS in Specialty, KSS in the Dept Stores, and DLTR/OLLI/BIG/FIVE in the Dollar/Discount stores with category momentum maintained by our work in athletic and casual (NKE/LULU/VFC/LEVI).

Multi-Year & At a Macro Level: Into this week’s conference, JPM equity strategists see a robust consumer setup through 1H22 with the Consumer Discretionary sector (namely stocks at the epicenter of the pandemic) to potentially lead the S&P 500 through 1H21 given the combination of (i) Underlying Consumer Strength (debt service ratio at 40-year low, record cash reserves, & Wealth Effect), (ii) “Effective end to the pandemic” in calendar 2Q per most recent data, and (iii) $1.9T of incremental stimulus (on top of $30T global injection to date). As a reminder, we are hosting JPM’s Chief Economist and Global Head of Economic Research Bruce Kasman and Senior Economist