Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Winners & Losers: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly 5-30-25
Fri, 30 May 2025
In this episode, Scott Becker highlights standout performers like Palantir and Costco, while calling out underperformers such as Astera Labs, GAP, and Best Buy.
Chapter 1: What are the winners in today's market?
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is winners and losers, the good, the bad, the ugly. So here's the deal today. Two stocks I'm watching closely that are winners today, and there's a backstory to all this.
One of these you've got going on right now in corporate America is when anybody does poorly, they blame it on tariffs, regardless of their management prowess or not. So part of this is a backdrop for that. But the good, the bad, the ugly. So the good are two companies, one of which we're a direct investor in, Palantir and Costco are doing well.
Chapter 2: What are the challenges facing Astera Labs?
Chapter 3: How did Costco perform in recent earnings?
Chapter 4: What are the common excuses for poor company performance?
One of these you've got going on right now in corporate America is when anybody does poorly, they blame it on tariffs, regardless of their management prowess or not. So part of this is a backdrop for that. But the good, the bad, the ugly. So the good are two companies, one of which we're a direct investor in, Palantir and Costco are doing well.
Costco reported good earnings, and that was in all the tier of noise is doing just fine. Now, let's talk about the bad and the ugly. The bad is Astera Labs. Astera Labs is a company where I thought I was a genius because, of course, it had been so up when I first received my shares of Astera Labs. Now, of course, it's been a disaster, and today is no different.
It's another disastrous day for Astera Labs as the discussions of China and chips ramp up. It's their labs. One of these things I own some of without any great conviction, which is itself a moronic way to invest in stocks. But I will tell you, generally, we invest in index funds and treasuries, and those are the core of the portfolio.
So the good so far, Palantir technology is just still knocking it out of the park. Costco continues to be operated like a well-oiled machine, just a great company. The bad, we look at Astero Labs, which are an investor, and I think it's down like 6% or 7% today. So that's that. And then the ugly. The ugly is the typical company that's been horribly managed and is blaming everything on TRFs.
And today's example of that is The Gap. The Gap is down 20% today. And again, Best Buy was just down 12% or 15% the other day. Both companies have really struggled the last several years. But of course, we're able to point now to tariffs as the reason for their struggles. We find that to be this fascinating thing to watch. So the winners and losers, the good, the bad, the ugly.
We've got Palantir Technologies. We've got Costco. We've got AsteroLibs. We've got Gap. We've got Best Buy. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very much for joining us today.
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