Retail, Restaurant Names Offer Consumer Insight During ICR Conference

In Monday's audio-compromised Portfolio video, in discussing the various events ahead of us this week, we noted one of them is the annual conference conducted by investor relations firm ICR. If you haven’t heard of this conference, it has been around for many years, and it’s one that primarily focuses on retail and restaurant companies.

Some of the company announcements spinning out the event included:

Urban Outfitters (URBN) announced net sales for the two months ended December 31 increased 9% year over year. Total Retail segment net sales increased 7%, with comparable Retail segment net sales increasing 5%.

American Eagle (AEO) announced its fourth quarter-to-date comparable sales, through Saturday, January 3, are up in the high single digits. That led the company to lift its fourth quarter operating income to $167 million to $170 million, up from its prior guidance of $155 million to $160 million. For the full quarter, AEO anticipates consolidated comparable sales in the range of 8% to 9%. We’d also note AEO’s fourth quarter operating income guidance includes approximately $50 million of pressure from tariffs, no change from its prior guidance.

Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) expects Q4 sales growth of around 5%, above its prior range, with EPS landing between $3.50 and $3.60 versus its prior outlook for $3.40 to $3.70 and the $3.60 consensus.

Five Below (FIVE) announced net sales results for the quarter-to-date period from November 2, 2025, through January 3, 2026, increased by 23.2% to $1.47 billion, with comparable sales for the period up 14.5%.

Shake Shack (SHAK) shared its preliminary Q4 same-store (same-Shack) sales rose 2.1% with preliminary revenue matching the $1.45 billion consensus. The company shared that it has 373 company-operated locations and aims to add 55 to 60 locations in 2026.

Casual dining chain First Watch (FWRG) shared that its same-restaurant sales grew 3.6% during Q4 2025.

Our Takeaways

We won’t get the December Retail Sales report until Wednesday (January 14), but the comments we could see a strong print than the headline year-over-year figure of 3.5% posted for November. Recent survey findings from both Mastercard (MA) and Visa (V) peg holiday shopping sales up 4% for November and December, which supports a higher December figure.

The small sample size above does point to stronger retail than restaurant sales during the quarter, but the results at Five Below confirm our thinking that consumers leaned more into discount stores and similar alternatives. And this is where we remind you of Costco’s (COST) adjusted U.S. comp sales for November and December rose 5.8% and 6.3%, respectively.

One of our concerns about retailers was the degree to which discounts and sales would hit their margins. Based on the comments from a few above, it appears those margins for some may have held up better than expected. We’ll want to hear from more retailers before we make a more sweeping comment about margins.

In keeping with past holiday spending trends, consumers spent more at retailers than at restaurants, which could have been influenced by holiday gift giving as well as the high cost of dining out these days. We see that as a very nice data point for our shares of TJX (TJX) .

Sticking with restaurants, in December, we shared a signal from a Bloomberg article that consumers of coffee were favoring drive-through coffee locations, like the ones from our own Dutch Bros. (BROS) . We have another Bloomberg article to share with you, this one detailed the history of Dutch Bros and added some nice color about the company’s pending food rollout:

"The chain now wants to juice that growth even more with a common formula: expanding the menu to food. Up until now, Dutch Bros has sold only prewrapped items such as muffin tops. Now it’s testing a new hot breakfast menu — preassembled chorizo wraps, sausage-egg-and-cheese biscuits, and several other basics — in Phoenix, with plans for a national rollout in 2026. Food currently makes up only about 2% of Dutch Bros’ sales, whereas it’s as much as 25% among competitors, and the company says it hopes this new assortment will both draw more morning commuters and increase order size."

That menu expansion, along with Dutch’s growing footprint, has been the key drivers behind our BROS investment thesis. Both look to be firing in the coming quarters, and that keeps us bullish on BROS' prospects.

Companies Presenting on Tuesday

The ICR conference continues over the next two days, and some of the presentations we’ll be following tomorrow are those from Walmart (WMT) , VF Corp (VFC) and Utz. Brands (UTZ) .

Of the three, comments from Walmart are likely to be the most closely followed, but let’s see what the others have to say and what that could mean for our holdings.

More Pro Portfolio

At the time of publication, TheStreet Pro Portfolio was long COST, TJX and BROS.