In this episode, Scott Becker covers six key financial stories, including Nike and FedEx’s stock declines, Booz Allen Hamilton’s government contract struggles, and the unpredictable nature of individual stock investments.
Chapter 1: What six financial stories are being discussed?
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. These are six of the stories that we're following today. And thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity Podcast. Thrilled this week to be ranked in the top three most of the week in the Apple Business News Podcast rankings. So thank you for listening. So first, Nike is down again today about 6%.
Chapter 2: Why is Nike's stock declining?
It had a solid earnings report, but projects a soft outlook for this year. It also saw its revenues for the quarter go down by more than a billion dollars, about 10% year over year. That's a bad sign. Nike, like anybody else who's been struggling, says that tariffs are going to kill margins. Based on those different factors, it's down some.
Chapter 3: What can we learn from FedEx's cautious outlook?
Second, FedEx is down 7% or so on a very cautious outlook, notwithstanding solid earnings. Third, Palantir Technologies, a company we made a bet on. It's not gone so great, so we made that bet. It remains up about 15% year-to-date. We'll see if that holds. Fourth, Booz Allen Hamilton, and this is fast because Booz Allen was always one of the great consulting firms in the country.
Chapter 4: What is the status of Palantir Technologies?
Chapter 5: What challenges is Booz Allen Hamilton facing?
It moved largely into government-contracted consulting the last several years. It's been a very profitable part of their business. They are now getting crushed as the government looks at cutting some contracts. They're down 20% year-to-date and around 8% yesterday. Similarly, Accenture, the huge consulting tech firm, one of the spinoffs of Anderson at one point, also was down significantly.
The concept, it was a billion-dollar contract from the government. It is amazing to me how many billion-dollar contracts the government has out there between all these different places they go to. Estero Labs is down 48% year-to-date. You may think, who cares about Estera Labs? And that's a great question. I care because I hold it directly.
Estera, like my beloved Chicago Bears and Cubs, might be ready for a turnaround, and maybe this is the year, so I won't give up now. Well, I've got no real clear conviction around it. Finally, sixth, the S&P index is down about 5% year-to-date. By and large, when I look at all the fluctuations in individual names,
I ought to just stick to index funds, but sometimes I don't have the discipline, but largely I do. Index funds and treasuries, then a smattering of individual stocks. Individual stocks are so hard to predict. They're all over the place. It is what it is. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very much.