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Lululemon adds to warnings about consumer spending as stock tanks 15% on weak revenue outlook amid tariff uncertainty

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  • Lululemon reported a strong fourth quarter where revenue increased 13%. But the popular active-wear retailer had a modest outlook for this year based on uncertainty about tariffs and lower consumer spending. Its stock dropped on the lower-than-expected guidance.

Lululemon’s exceptional quarter had largely to do with “newness,” CEO Calvin McDonald said during the activewear brand’s earnings call Thursday, but the future doesn’t look as bright for the company.

Introducing new products helped drive higher foot traffic and interest in the brand, he said, resulting in a 13% fourth-quarter revenue increase to $3.61 billion that beat Wall Street’s expectations for $3.57 billion, according to a survey of analysts by LSEG. The brand launched several new lines like Glow Up, BeCalm, and Mile Maker, which all helped “drive guests’ loyalty, repeat purchase, and long-term value,” McDonald said. 

But like many other retailers, Lululemon had a lower-than-expected outlook for 2025 due to the hot word of the moment: uncertainty. Indeed, Wells Fargo analysts wrote in a Friday note they believed investors were more interested in Lululemon’s “subdued” outlook. 

McDonald said the company had conducted a survey with Ipsos earlier this month regarding consumer sentiment, and found “consumers are spending less due to increased concerns about inflation and the economy.”

That follows similar warnings from top U.S. airlines that flagged softer demand for travel as well as from Lululemon rival Nike and retail giant Walmart, which said customers are exhibiting “stressed behaviors.”

It’s also in line with other consumer sentiment surveys released this week. Consumer confidence hit a 12-year low, The Conference Board reported Tuesday, and the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment survey released this week plummeted 11%.

At Lululemon, low consumer confidence is “manifesting itself” into slower foot traffic in the U.S. this quarter, McDonald said during the earnings call, adding that “we are controlling what we can control.”

For the first quarter, the company sees revenue of $2.34 billion-$2.36 billion, below Wall Street views for $2.39 billion.

Meghan Frank, chief financial officer of Lululemon, said during the earnings call “tariff headwinds” could lead to slower sales in 2025. In fact, management sees revenue of $11.1 billion-$11.3 billion this year, up modestly from $10.59 billion in 2024 but also below analysts’ expectations for $11.31 billion.

Upon that news, Lululemon shares dropped about 10% in extended trading. As of mid-morning Friday, shares were down more than 15% to $293.66 per share, which is also a 31% drop from a late-January high. 

Lululemon didn’t immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.

Lululemon’s tough macro environment for 2025

Other investment banks including Morgan Stanley, Piper Sandler, and Raymond James downgraded their ratings for Lululemon following the earnings call, according to retail options tracker Jarvis. Jefferies analyst Randy Konik told Yahoo Finance “the theme remains that growth is fading.” 

Although Bernstein analysts called Lululemon the “market leader” for North American sports apparel, they said the company is “particularly vulnerable to macro weaknesses,” which could hurt foot traffic this quarter. 

Fresh economic data out Friday highlighted further the challenges that companies like Lululemon face. The Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge ticked higher last month to an annual pace of 2.8%, topping views for 2.7%.

At the same time, consumer spending rose 0.4% on the month, below forecasts, even as personal incomes jumped 0.8%. That caution lifted the personal saving rate to 4.6%, the highest since June 2024.

Meanwhile, Lululemon has grown increasingly popular in China, with net revenue increasing roughly 40% during the fourth quarter. This year, Lululemon plans to open 40 to 45 stores, Frank said, a majority of which will be in China. 

But fast-growing challenger brands in the active wear space are setting up an “epic showdown” for the industry this year, according to a November report by the Business of Fashion and McKinsey & Co. 

“2025 is likely to be a time of reckoning for many brands,” the report said. This year’s  outlook “appears to be a continuation of the sluggishness seen in 2024: revenue growth is expected to stabilise in the low single digits.”

Lululemon plans to release more product lines—one of which could appeal to workers returning to the office. The company will introduce a new fabric called “LuluLinen,” which has the look and feel of linen, but the feel of athletic wear. 

But “as you are aware, the external environment remains dynamic, and there continues to be considerable uncertainty driven by macro and geopolitical circumstances,” McDonald said during the earnings call. “That being said, we remain focused on what we can control.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com



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Baby boomers are beating millennials in a housing showdown, scooping up homes in all cash

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Canada’s former banker turned prime minister slams Trump’s tariffs as ‘misguided’

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Prime Minister Mark Carney said Thursday that Canada will match U.S. President Donald Trump’s 25% auto tariffs with a tariff on vehicles imported from the United States.

Trump’s previously announced 25% tariffs on auto imports took effect Thursday. The prime minister said he told Trump last week in a phone call that he would be retaliating for those tariffs.

“We take these measures reluctantly. And we take them in ways that is intended and will cause maximum impact in the United States and minimum impact in Canada,” Carney said.

Carney said Canada won’t put tariffs on auto parts as Trump has done, because he said Canadians know the benefits of the integrated auto sector. The parts can go back and forth across the Canada-U.S. border several times before being fully assembled in Ontario or Michigan.

Carney said Canadians are already seeing the impact.

Automaker Stellantis said it shut down its assembly plant in Windsor, Canada, for two weeks from April 7, the local union said late Wednesday. The president of Unifor Local 444, James Stewart, said more scheduling changes were expected in coming weeks.

Carney said that will impact 3,600 auto workers that he met with last week.

Autos are Canada’s second-largest export and the sector employs 125,000 Canadians directly and almost another 500,000 in related industries.

Carney announced last week a CA$2 billion ($1.4 billion) “strategic response fund” that will protect Canadian auto jobs affected by Trump’s tariffs.

Trump previously placed 25% tariffs on Canada’s steel and aluminum. And Carney said Canada can expects further tariffs on pharmaceuticals, lumber and semi-conductors.

“Given the prospective damage to their own people the American administration should eventually change course,” Carney said. “Although their policy will hurt American families, until that pain becomes impossible to ignore, I do not believe they will change direction, so the road to that point may indeed be long. And will be hard on Canadians just as it will be on other partners of the United States.”

Carney, a former two-time central banker in Canada and the U.K, said Trump’s actions will reverberate in Canada and across the world. “They are all unjustified and unwarranted and in our judgement misguided,” Carney said.

Canada’s initial $30 billion Canadian (US$21 billion) worth of retaliatory tariffs remain in place, having been applied on items like American orange juice, peanut butter, coffee, appliances, footwear, cosmetics, motorcycles and certain pulp and paper products.

Carney suspended his election campaign to return to Ottawa to deal with Trump’s tariffs.

Opposition Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre said he would remove the federal tax on Canadian made vehicles.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford, whose province has the bulk of Canada’s auto industry, called Canada’s latest tariffs a “measured response.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com



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One country spared from Trump’s reciprocal tariffs: Mexico—but it’s still fighting other fees

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Mexico celebrated Thursday having dodged the latest round of tariffs from the White House taking aim at dozens of U.S. trading partners around the world, but was also quickly reminded that in a global economy the effects of uncertainty can’t be entirely avoided.

President Claudia Sheinbaum said the free-trade agreement signed by Mexico, Canada and the U.S. during Trump’s first administration had shielded Mexico.

Now her government will focus on the existing 25% U.S. tariffs on imported autossteel and aluminum, while accelerating domestic production to safeguard jobs and reduce imports.

“During my last call with President Trump, I said that, in the case of reciprocal tariffs, my understanding was that there wouldn’t be tariffs (on Mexico), because Mexico doesn’t place tariffs on the United States,” Sheinbaum said.

Economy Secretary Marcelo Ebrard noted that despite having free-trade agreements with the U.S., many countries were targeted by the tariffs U.S. President Donald Trump announced Wednesday on what he dubbed “Liberation Day.” Trump framed the tariffs as a way to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S.

Noting that Mexico dodged the latest round of tariffs, Ebrard said swaths of Mexican exports including agricultural products like avocados, clothing and electronics will continue to enter the U.S. without import duties.

Sheinbaum, meanwhile, encouraged companies producing in Mexico who had not been exporting under the free-trade agreement for various reasons to take the necessary steps to qualify. She cited major German auto producers as an example.

Qualifying for the free-trade agreement could involve anything from doing paperwork to making adjustments to the sourcing of a product.

Despite Trump’s latest tariffs not being imposed on Mexico, the uncertainty they created and the interconnectedness of the North American auto supply chains meant it didn’t take long for the effects to touch Mexico.

Stellantis, maker of auto brands including Dodge and Jeep, announced that it would pause production at its assembly plant in Toluca west of Mexico City for the month of April while it assesses the tariffs’ impact on its operations. A similar temporary production halt was scheduled for an assembly plant in Canada and some 900 workers were to be temporarily laid off across several plants in the United States.

That uncertainty is part of the reasons why Sheinbaum is pushing Plan Mexico, an initiative to promote and cultivate more domestic production.

As an example, she cited a collaboration between her government, local universities and Mexican companies Megaflux and Dina to produce electric buses for public transportation.

Ebrard said recently that the buses represent not only a technological advance in Mexico, but also a “strategic decision” in favor of Mexico’s industrial sovereignty.

At a factory in Mexico City, the electric buses called Taruk — trail-runner in the Indigenous Yaqui language – are already in production. Megaflux Director General Roberto Gottfried said the company hopes to deliver some 200 by year’s end.

He noted that some 70% of the Taruk’s components are produced in Mexico, including its motor, but the lithium batteries that power them come from China.

In a country where one out of every three people use public transportation every day, developing this sector domestically is critical, Gottfried said.

Despite the global economic challenges presented by the uncertainty caused by tariffs, he said, Mexico’s large internal market gives the initiative a competitive advantage to develop and weather the storm.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com



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