This Week in Earnings – Q1'25

Executives Strike a Cautious Tone as Uncertainty Rises; Even Strong Q1 Performers Temper Expectations, While Others Augment or Withdraw Guidance as They Await Greater Clarity 

• O’Reilly Automotive ($81.8B, Specialty Retail): “The high degree of uncertainty surrounding the duration, magnitude, and timing of potential tariffs, coupled with the changes we have already seen to previously announced tariffs, prevent us from prudently forecasting the inflationary impacts. We have not seen adverse impacts to consumers that could also come with rapid and sustained changes to the pricing environment, but we are cautious in our outlook given the broader uncertainties in the macroeconomic environment. Based on these considerations, we have maintained an unchanged sales guidance range that is supported by current business trends and volumes.”
• Chipotle Mexican Grill ($67.8B, Hotels, Restaurants & Leisure): “In February, we began to see that the elevated level of uncertainty felt by consumers are starting to impact their spending habits. We could see this in our visitation study where saving money because of concerns around the economy was the overwhelming reason consumers were reducing the frequency of restaurant visits. This drove a slowdown in our underlying transaction trends. This trend has continued into April.”
• Genuine Parts ($16.5B, Distributors): “For right now, we’re kind of sitting here in a wait-and-see mode. We had a good first quarter, in line with what we thought. We’ve had a decent start to April. I think we’re all in the same camp of trying to understand what’s happening. We have a lot of data points that would just point us to let’s stay in the wait and see and hold it, and hopefully we can get past this 90-day period with a lot of good outcomes.”
• Hasbro ($8.6B, Leisure Products): “We’ve looked at a variety of scenarios, and we have a pretty cautious outlook in terms of what the impacts of the current tariff regime would have. Basically, we’d see the impact to consumer spending on the Toy category consistent with what happened with the 2008-2009 recession. The Toy category was down roughly mid-single-digits. And then in terms of the inflationary outlook, we went back to 2020 and 2021 with the early days of COVID. So, we basically see a combination of inflation and some recessionary pressures on the macro.”
• Brunswick ($3.5B, Leisure Products): “There remains significant uncertainty related to our 2025 performance and guidance, primarily due to the uncertainties of trade policy, the direct and indirect impact of these uncertainties on our consumers. Attempting to provide guidance is uniquely challenging in this environment, but we appreciate investor desire to understand the earnings components and guideposts that we’re tracking internally. After accounting for the Q1 beat, we believe that we would see volume pressure, especially in the near term, as our consumer spends cautiously in response to the uncertain tariff environment.”
• Mister Car Wash ($2.6B, Diversified Consumer Services): “Embedded in our outlook is a cautious view of the consumer, given the current macro backdrop. We are balancing our optimism about our business and momentum against the uncertainty of the consumer environment and the potential economic fallout and turbulence from tariff negotiations. We are well-insulated from the direct tariff exposure. However, although our cost exposure is indirect, the broader downstream impact on the consumer is unknown and difficult to predict. This could create greater volatility in our business, particularly retail, where we are retaining a measured view on our expectations for the remainder of the year.”

Withdrawn Guidance / Augmented Guidance Practices 

• Tractor Supply ($29.3B, Specialty Retail): “Since we shared our initial outlook for 2025, the macro environment has clearly become more uncertain. While not our standard practice, given current conditions, we are also providing second quarter guidance as we believe offering near-term visibility is important for our investors at this time. As always, our goal is to be transparent and we remain committed to updating our outlook as we gain greater visibility.”
• Skechers USA ($8.5B, Textiles, Apparel): “As we began 2025, we communicated our belief, reflected in our annual guidance, that this would be another year of growth. The first quarter confirmed that belief, reflecting the strength of our brand and product assortment. Today, we still believe many markets will continue along that trajectory, absent unforeseen impacts from the current macroeconomic environment. However, we must also acknowledge that the world is significantly more uncertain today than three months ago. We were in a similar situation five years ago, albeit for different reasons. I’m not in the habit of quoting myself often, but the language I used then is equally applicable today: ‘We will not be providing revenue or earnings guidance at this time, as the current environment is simply too dynamic from which to plan results with a reasonable assurance of success.'”
• Wyndham Hotels & Resorts ($7.0B, Hotels, Restaurants & Leisure): “With trends remaining softer through April we are refining our 2025 outlook to reflect a more cautious view. The high end of this range assumes the remaining nine months of the year performed largely in line with our original outlook, essentially implying a swift resolution to the current global trade tensions and a corresponding improvement in consumer sentiment. Conversely, the lower end of the range reflects performance more consistent with the trends we saw in March and April for the rest of the year. Given the current uncertainty and limited long-term visibility, we believe this new guidance is a reasonable lower bound, wider than what we typically provide, but a prudent response in today’s volatile macro environment.”
• Harley-Davidson ($3.1B, Automobiles): “With the level of uncertainty we are seeing and the number of changes happening on an ongoing basis in global tariff and trade. It’s difficult to predict what policies may impact customers over the course of the year and how consumer confidence will affect discretionary product purchases. We therefore are withdrawing our previous 2025 guidance until there is more clarity over the economy and tariff landscape.”
• Visteon ($2.1B, Automobile Components): “We’re not reaffirming full-year guidance at this stage due to the uncertainty created from tariffs and the range of potential outcomes it creates for the automotive markets, most likely in the second half of the year. Absent the announced tariff and the latest economic developments, we would be tracking in line with our original guidance. We were confident we would be within our original guidance and likely towards the midpoint. However, the level of uncertainty has increased significantly since our last earnings call.”