Markets Rebound—For Real This Time?

In this issue of the peel:

• Markets bounced back nicely to end the week, but is it enough to break the losing streak?
• Beauty retailer Ulta had a major glow-up on stellar earnings.

Market Snapshot

?? FINANCE MADNESS IS HERE – GET YOUR PICKS IN BEFORE MARCH 16! ??

Move over, March Madness—Wall Street’s biggest showdown is about to begin. Finance Madness kicks off on March 16, where the biggest names, firms, and strategies will go head-to-head in a battle for supremacy. ??

But before the matchups begin, YOU get to call the shots.

?? Who’s making a deep run, and who’s getting knocked out early?

?? Think we nailed the rankings, or did we totally fumble the seedings?

?? Is there a Cinderella story in the making?

?? FINAL CALL: Brackets close March 16—once the battles start, your chance to predict is gone!

?? Submit your predictions NOW:

https://www.runyourpool.com/p/j/3d4f3806407e49e19db9610483839e8c

Banana Bits

• The magic retirement number is $1.5M. See how long that would last in every state.
• Here’s how American automakers are adjusting their operations in response to new tariffs.
• Check out the VC firm funding young tech companies that are growing revenue 10% per week.
• Gen-Z is bringing back flip phones, polaroids, and other nostalgic retro items.
• Ulta’s stock was shining bright after a better-than-expected earnings report.
• The ultimate recession survival guide brought to you by extremely unqualified professionals.
• Hedge funds are losing money and unwinding risk similar to how they did in the early stages of the pandemic.

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Macro Monkey Says

Congress vs Common Sense

In a thrilling last-minute plot twist, Congress managed not to shut down the government.?

That’s right—our elected officials, known for their impeccable timing (and by that, I mean missing deadlines like college students on a Sunday night), finally agreed on a short-term spending bill.?

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, in an unexpected show of bipartisanship, supported the GOP-led measure, sparking a market rally.

The result? The S&P 500, Nasdaq, and Dow Jones all had a much-needed surge. Wall Street loves it when politicians actually do their jobs.?

Unfortunately, this wasn't enough to erase the week’s damage, as all major indices still posted their fourth consecutive weekly decline. A true “win the battle, lose the war” situation.

Source

Meanwhile, the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index tanked fast and hard. With inflation creeping up and tariff concerns resurfacing, American consumers are clutching their wallets the same way I do every time I walk through Times Square.

So, what’s next? With another shutdown threat just a few months away and inflation still the unwanted guest at the economic party, investors should buckle up. The market is acting like it just had an energy drink and a nap—excited, but still exhausted.

Career Corner

Question

Does the Bloomberg Terminal have a function where you could look for bond issuances/IPOs a bank has done for its clients?

Answer

Yes.

For Bond Issuances:

You can use the FIW function and then filter by issuer, underwriter, or bookrunner. If you want to focus on a particular bank, you can search for that bank as the underwriter to see the bond deals they've led or been involved in.

Another option is using BVAL for bond pricing data, which also tracks issuance information.

For IPOs:

The IPO function on Bloomberg allows you to search by bank, underwriter, or deal specifics. You can filter by the underwriter to see which IPOs a particular bank has been involved in.

Head Mentor,?WSO Academy

Check out WSO Academy

What's Ripe

Peloton (PTON) 16.1%

• Shares surged after Canaccord Genuity upgraded the stock to "Buy," citing the company's strong position in the connected fitness market and potential for revenue growth. Looks like Peloton is back on track, pedaling away from its past hurdles.

Ulta Beauty (ULTA) 13.7%

• Ulta's earnings are as flawless as a well-blended foundation. The beauty company reported stronger than expected quarterly results, sending the stock soaring.

What's Rotten

The Gap, Inc. (GAP) 3.0%

• There wasn’t much red in the market on Friday. Gap was a rare sore spot, declining after an insider sold shares. When insiders don’t even wanna be involved in the stock anymore, that’s your cue to run.

Macy’s (M) 2.8%

• The struggling retailer has been on its last leg for a while now. The stock fell even further amid broader retail sector challenges, leaving investors pretty confident that Macy’s best days are in the past.

Thought Banana

Ulta Beauty’s Earnings Glow Up

Ulta Beauty just dropped an earnings report that’s as flawless as a perfectly blended foundation. Well, not completely. The beauty retailer gave meh guidance, and sales were slightly lower than last year (blame the missing extra week) but still beat expectations.?

And as we all have learned by now, it’s never the actual numbers that matter but what the numbers mean relative to the market’s expectation.

The real highlight? Comparable sales rose 1.5%, driven by higher average revenue per order.?

Translation: customers aren’t walking out with just mascara—they’re going full glam. Ulta also managed to improve margins despite supply chain pressures, thanks to better inventory management (aka, less stuff mysteriously “walking away”).

Source

But not everything is perfect. The 2025 forecast came in lighter than Wall Street hoped, with projected EPS slightly below expectations. In response, CEO Kecia Steelman reassured investors, saying growth “will take time.” Investors, however, seem fine waiting—as long as Ulta keeps delivering.

Long story short? Ulta is proving that even in uncertain markets, people will always justify spending $50 on an “essential” setting spray.

The Big Question: With competition from Sephora and direct-to-consumer beauty brands, can Ulta keep its edge in the long run?

Banana Brain Teaser

Previous

Each year for 4 years, a farmer increased the number of trees in a certain orchard by ? of the number of trees in the orchard the preceding year. If all of the trees thrived and there were 6,250 trees in the orchard at the end of the 4-year period, how many trees were in the orchard at the beginning of the 4-year period?

Answer: 2,560

Today

A certain characteristic in a large population has a distribution that is symmetric about the mean m. If 68% of the distribution lies within one standard deviation d of the mean, what percent of the distribution is less than m+d?

Send your guesses to [email protected]

?

Behind every stock is a company. Find out what it’s doing.

Peter Lynch

How Would You Rate Today's Peel?

?? All the bananas

?? Meh

?? Rotten AF

Happy Investing,

Chris, Vyom, Ankit & Patrick