Walmart again reported strong results for Walmart US and Sam’s Club, with the business model rapidly changing with fast delivery / upgraded merchandise offerings attracting more affluent households and that / retail evolution producing a large profit pool of alternative revenue streams (advertising, etc.) that allows Walmart to lean into EDLP, and drive more separation from incumbent retail. FQ4 contained a lot of external noise, hurricane comps, government shutdown, a more choiceful lower-end consumer, and yet, Walmart delivered +4.

McDonald’s produced a very strong +6.8% comp-store increase in the US, driven by both ticket and traffic as it leaned into its value brand promise, strongly executed price / product architecture, loyalty, and winning marketing Quarterly traffic (+0.8%) benefitted from strong trade-in by younger urban / suburban consumers (traffic +11%), partially offset by some trade-out by affluent households (GLP-1) and Hispanic households. December, by initiative (i.e. management’s intent), won strong traffic by the lower half of household incomes (traffic +1.

The 8th issue of The Advan Buysider is now available. As a reminder, The Buysider is designed to provide timely, novel, and impactful insights on specific names and topics using Advan’s data. I welcome your feedback. Should you not see names / sectors that are of high interest today, reach out to me. The takeaways from #8: 1) You’ll have noticed that we’ve begun to update on names (some previews, some post-views) between full issues.

The wireless / cable industry’s competitive fervor is intensifying, for which the i-Phone 17’s high consumer appeal has been an agent; Apple is a large beneficiary of that fervor. The intensity has risen because: (1) increasing overall wireline-to-wireless convergence (lots of new fiber being laid down and traditional cable’s contraction is worsening), and (2) Verizon has a new CEO (or sheriff) that’s gunning for market share of net-adds. Observed visitation (Advan) market share trends have aligned with T-Mobile’s trends in postpaid phone net adds.

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O’Reilly Auto reported sales trends largely consistent with Q3 trends. Its market share capture in Commercial was again very strong. The DIY side of the business is still soft, reflecting that consumer. That said, vehicles need to be repaired when they break down, and so the volume decline in DIY is reasonably benign. Competition appears rational, given O’Reilly’s strong gross margin performance and despite O’Reilly moving into new East Coast markets; they win durable market share by out-serving the competition.

Amazon’s in-line results were marked by management signaling that the company was entering another large multi-faceted investment cycle and that the P&L efficiencies that the retail business has enjoyed over the past two years has come to a close. Amazon’s grocery business gained meaningful market share in 2025. Share gains will continue in 2026 and Amazon expects to open 100 new Whole Foods locations in the coming years. This added competitive intensity will further pressure conventional grocers and survival will be dependent on the incumbents delivering exceptional store locations, standards, and service levels, and differentiated on-target merchandise assortments.

Coach (Tapestry) and Ralph Lauren had a very successful holiday quarter in both sales and profit growth. Their ongoing success stems from elevating their brand and using the proceeds to increase top-of-the-funnel marketing and presence in key influential (cer) cities such as Miami, Los Angeles, and New York. It’s a playbook that European luxury brands are also employing. As such, for the right trade areas, demand for real estate is hot and will remain so.

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