Q1 2025 Earnings Conference Call Recaps: Fastenal (FAST)
Bespoke’s Conference Call Recaps use AI to summarize lengthy earnings calls. The commentary below is AI-generated and then edited by Bespoke for quality control. As always, none of these summaries should be construed as recommendations to buy or sell any securities, and investors should do their own research and/or consult with a financial professional before making any investment decisions.
Our latest recap available to Bespoke subscribers covers Fastenal’s (FAST) Q1 2025 earnings call.
Fastenal (FAST) is an industrial distributor that supplies a broad range of MRO (maintenance, repair, and operations) products, including fasteners, tools, safety gear, and inventory management solutions. FAST serves manufacturers, construction firms, schools, governments, and logistics providers across North America and internationally, with a growing presence in Mexico and Canada. Q1 2025 results showed daily sales growth of 5% despite sluggish macro conditions, driven largely by internal execution and momentum in national and regional contracts. Management cited tariff-related inventory buildup and sourcing diversification, noting that some products are now routed directly to Mexico and Canada to avoid double-duty costs. The company began taking price actions in April, expecting a 3–4% uplift in Q2, potentially doubling in the second half of the year. FMI device deployments grew 12.5%, and 61% of total sales came through digital footprints, inching toward Fastenal’s 66–68% target. Executives also highlighted weaknesses in the e-commerce platform, particularly among small customers, as a key area for future improvement. FAST shares were up close to 7% on 4/11 on a sales beat…
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Bespoke’s Morning Lineup – 4/11/25 – Almost the Weekend
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“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” – Napoleon Bonaparte
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
To see yesterday’s segment from CNN’s OutFront, click on the image below.
Looking at futures now, we may see a positive end to the week, but if you look in a few minutes, the picture could look entirely different. Banks have kicked off the earnings season positively with all of the major banks that have reported exceeding EPS forecasts. In response to the reports, most of the stocks are modestly higher, but with gains of less than 1%, the moves are hardly convincing.
The only economic reports on the calendar are PPI and Michigan Sentiment. Just like yesterday’s CPI, PPI cam in weaker than expected with both the headline and core readings showing negative readings on a m/m basis. Given the brushing off yesterday’s CPI, it doesn’t look like the market will pay much attention to that report. Regarding the UMIch report, we would expect to see another round of extremely divergent views based on political leanings, but an overall weaker trend.
If there are years where nothing happens, the last few weeks have been a period where years happened, and this weekend can’t come soon enough. As the President has torn up the playbook for global trade, financial markets have responded with some of the most violent moves in years. The most extreme aspects of the volatility started last Wednesday night, but this week has seen just as notable moves across the financial spectrum.
During periods of the most heightened volatility and uncertainty in markets, three areas where investors often flock are gold, the dollar, and US Treasuries. This week, only one of those safe havens caught a bid.
After pulling back to its 50-day moving average earlier this week, gold has bounced in the last three days. It’s still early, but if today’s gains hold, it will be gold’s third straight day of rallying more than 1.5% and the longest streak of gains in the magnitude or more since 2011/ During the last three days, gold is up over 8% and on pace for its largest three-day move since March 2020. Before that, you would have to go back to the financial crisis to find the last time it rallied as much in three days.
Bespoke’s Consumer Pulse Report — April 2025
Bespoke’s Consumer Pulse Report is an analysis of a huge consumer survey that we run each month. Our goal with this survey is to track trends across the economic and financial landscape in the US. Using the results from our proprietary monthly survey, we dissect and analyze all of the data and publish the Consumer Pulse Report, which we sell access to on a subscription basis. Sign up for a 30-day free trial to our Bespoke Consumer Pulse subscription service. With a trial, you’ll get coverage of consumer electronics, social media, streaming media, retail, autos, and much more. The report also has numerous proprietary US economic data points that are extremely timely and useful for investors.
We’ve just released our most recent monthly report to Pulse subscribers, and it’s definitely worth the read if you’re curious about the health of the consumer in the current market environment. Start a 30-day free trial for a full breakdown of all of our proprietary Pulse economic indicators.
Q1 2025 Earnings Conference Call Recaps: Constellation Brands (STZ)
Bespoke’s Conference Call Recaps use AI to summarize lengthy earnings calls. The commentary below is AI-generated and then edited by Bespoke for quality control. As always, none of these summaries should be construed as recommendations to buy or sell any securities, and investors should do their own research and/or consult with a financial professional before making any investment decisions.
Our latest recap available to Bespoke subscribers covers Constellation Brands’ (STZ) Q4 2025 earnings call.
Constellation Brands (STZ) is best known for its top-selling Mexican beer imports like Modelo, Corona, and Pacifico. The company also owns a premium wine and spirits business, with a focus on higher-end brands following recent divestitures of its mainstream wine labels. Serving primarily US consumers, STZ provides unique insight into consumer trends, particularly among Hispanic buyers who account for about half of its beer volume. STZ lowered its beer sales growth outlook to 0–3% for FY26 (previously 7–9%), citing persistent weakness among Hispanic consumers, who remain cautious due to inflation, immigration concerns, and job insecurity. Despite this, brand health remains strong with Modelo, Corona, and Pacifico all showing increased awareness and favorability. Tariff-related cost pressures, especially on aluminum cans, are expected to weigh on margins, but the company reaffirmed its 39–40% beer margin target. STZ shares opened 4.2% lower but ended the day up slightly on 4/10…
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Q1 2025 Earnings Conference Call Recaps: CarMax (KMX)
Bespoke’s Conference Call Recaps use AI to summarize lengthy earnings calls. The commentary below is AI-generated and then edited by Bespoke for quality control. As always, none of these summaries should be construed as recommendations to buy or sell any securities, and investors should do their own research and/or consult with a financial professional before making any investment decisions.
Our latest recap available to Bespoke subscribers covers CarMax’s (KMX) Q4 2025 earnings call.
CarMax (KMX) is the largest used car retailer in the United States, operating over 250 stores and a digital platform that enables customers to buy, sell, and finance vehicles seamlessly online or in-store. What sets KMX apart is its fully integrated omni-channel experience and its ability to scale vehicle sourcing, reconditioning, and financing through its proprietary tech and logistics infrastructure. KMX posted strong results with EPS up 81% to $0.58, as used unit comps rose 5.1%. Omni-channel sales reached 67% under a newly expanded definition, with digital tools like the AI assistant “Skye” answering over 50% of customer questions. Sourcing hit a record 269,000 vehicles, driven by a 114% YoY jump in dealer-sourced units. Management highlighted rising demand amid tariff-driven new car price fears and began recapturing Tier 1 loans into CarMax Auto Finance (CAF). There was also notable discussion about cost efficiency gains, a seemingly large focus for the company. Despite growth, results were weaker than expected, and amid macro volatility, shares fell close to 20% on 4/10…
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The Closer – More Swings, Dollar Holler, 30y Sale – 4/10/25
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Looking for deeper insight into markets? In tonight’s Closer sent to Bespoke Institutional clients, we take another look over the enormous swings in the market that has included record options volumes (page 1), clearing out of leveraged ETFs (page 2), the explosion of equity turnover and outflows from illiquid credit and their ETFs (pages 3 and 4), and surge in real yields (page 5). We then finish with a review of today’s solid long bond reopening (page 6).
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Sentiment Stays Bearish
Even before the extreme volatility of the past week, the technical correction in stock prices had meant that investor sentiment tanked. Granted, even when the S&P 500 was last at an all-time high in mid-February sentiment leaned bearish with the percentage of respondents to the weekly AAII survey reporting as bulls only sitting at 29.2% as of February 20. Over the next three weeks, it dropped to local lows in the 19% range and as of today’s release, it was back up to 28.5%. In other words, even through all the crazy moves in the market, investors amazingly appear to be only slightly less bullish than they were at the time of the February 19 high.
Of course, that is still a muted level of bullish sentiment. Meanwhile, the percentage of respondents reporting as bears is much more elevated than it was two months ago. Whereas the February 20 reading in bears was only 40.5%, today it is at 58.9% which was down versus 61.9% last week.
That means that investors continue to overwhelmingly report bearish sentiment with increased polarization to boot. The share of respondents reporting neutral sentiment reaffirms this. That share dropped to a meager 12.5% in the latest week’s data. That ranks in the first percentile of readings in the full history of the data dating back to 1987 and is the lowest reading since it came in at 11% on May 28, 2009.
Of course, other sentiment surveys offer additional looks at investor sentiment. One such report is the Investors Intelligence survey which has a survey base of newsletter writers. One perk of this survey is a much longer history beginning back in 1963. This week’s release indicated the lowest level of bullish sentiment, 23.6%, since December 2008. Before that, the last time sentiment was this weak was in July 1994. So it’s been rare for investors to be this outright negative of equities.
We would also note that this survey collects data through Tuesday afternoons with a release early Wednesday mornings. That means this latest data would not have reflected any reaction to yesterday’s update on tariffs nor the massive surge in stock prices in response.
That weak sentiment is unsurprising given the trade war’s implications for the global economy and the collapse and general volatility in stock prices we have seen in the past week. To help further quantify this, in the chart below we show the percentage spread between the S&P 500’s closing highs and lows for all one-week periods ending Tuesday, which coincides with the Investors Intelligence survey’s collection period, going back to the start of the survey data in 1963. In the latest week, we saw a 12% range between the S&P 500’s high and low on a closing basis, one of the more volatile weeks of this period.
In the chart below, we show those weeks when the S&P 500 had a 10%+ range between high and low closing prices during the Investors Intelligence survey collection period while also trading lower during the span. As shown, the past week was the 18th example. For starters, the S&P 500’s range this go around was middling (47th percentile) for these occurrences although the decline was one of the larger ones, slightly outpacing the median decline of 9.5%.
As for the changes in sentiment, bullish sentiment according to the Investors Intelligence survey is the second lowest of these instances behind late October 2008. The week-over-week decline was also larger than normal, nearly doubling the average move. While that survey’s bearish sentiment reading wasn’t even in line with the average, the week-over-week uptick was again more than double what has historically been the norm during weeks with this much volatility. In other words, currently, we are seeing extreme volatility and extremely bearish investor sentiment, especially among investment professionals (i.e. newsletter writers).
Bespoke’s Morning Lineup – 4/10/25 – Giving Some Back
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“Self-praise is for losers. Be a winner. Stand for something. Always have class and be humble.” – John Madden
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
After one of the largest one-day gains in market history yesterday, we’re giving back some of the gains this morning as the S&P 500 is indicated to open 1.75% lower while the Nasdaq is down 2%. European stocks are surging with the STOXX 600 up over 5%, and in Asia overnight, the Nikkei was up over 9% while China saw more muted gains.
We just got March CPI, and the headline and core readings were weaker than expected. Headline CPI dropped 0.1% while core CPI increased just 0.1% versus expectations for an increase of 0.3%. In recent history, this report would send futures sharply higher, but given the looming tariffs, the markets may view it as somewhat stale. Jobless claims were right in line with expectations, ending a streak of five better-than-expected reports. Given concerns over the economy, initial claims have been contained.
As big as yesterday’s move was in the S&P 500, it’s crazy to think that it is still down over 3.5% since last Wednesday’s close and well below both its 50 and 200-day moving averages.
In terms of where various sectors are trading relative to their short-term trading ranges, nine out of eleven are still at oversold levels (1+ standard deviations below their 50-DMAs), and that accounts for yesterday’s big gains!
In yesterday’s session, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) traded in an incredible intraday range of 10.8%. Even crazier is that on Tuesday, the intraday range was 7.3% while Monday’s range was 8.6%! Since SPY was launched in 1993, the last three days represent just the sixth time that the ETF has had an intraday range of more than 5% for three or more days. The only periods with as many or more consecutive intraday ranges of at least 5% were in the fourth quarter of 2008 (four separate occurrences) and March 2020. These levels of sustained volatility are truly historic.
The Closer – Tariff Chaos, Momentum Shift, Fed – 4/9/25
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Looking for deeper insight into markets? In tonight’s Closer sent to Bespoke Institutional clients, after a wild session, we start by reviewing the latest tariff news (page 1) in addition to the reaction across assets (page 2 and 3). Focusing in on equities, we also show just how strong breadth was (page 4) and the incredible turnaround in momentum (page 5). After a review of the latest Fed developments (page 6), we finish by reviewing today’s very strong 10-year note reopening (page 7).
See today’s full post-market Closer and everything else Bespoke publishes by starting a 14-day trial to Bespoke Institutional today!
Q1 2025 Earnings Conference Call Recaps: Delta Air Lines (DAL)
Bespoke’s Conference Call Recaps use AI to summarize lengthy earnings calls. The commentary below is AI-generated and then edited by Bespoke for quality control. As always, none of these summaries should be construed as recommendations to buy or sell any securities, and investors should do their own research and/or consult with a financial professional before making any investment decisions.
Our latest recap available to Bespoke subscribers covers Delta Air Lines’ (DAL) Q1 2025 earnings call.
Delta Air Lines (DAL) is one of the largest global airlines, offering passenger and cargo service to more than 275 destinations across six continents. DAL generates a significant portion of its revenue from premium seating, international travel, and a lucrative co-branded credit card partnership with American Express. The airline is a key barometer for consumer and corporate travel trends. DAL recorded March quarter revenue of $13 billion, but flagged a more difficult operating environment. Domestic main cabin demand was notably weak, prompting plans to cut second-half capacity growth to flat, with specific reductions in off-peak days and Southeastern markets. Premium and loyalty revenues remained resilient, with Amex remuneration up 13% and premium revenue up 7%. International bookings stayed strong, especially on transatlantic and Pacific routes. Executives also warned of tariff risks, stating they won’t accept deliveries of Airbus aircraft with a 20% surcharge. No full-year guidance was given due to macro uncertainty. On better-than-expected results, DAL shares were up as much as 23.4% on 4/9…
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