Market Takeaways from the SOTU & GoDaddy Registering AI Agents

Summary

Brew Markets – Market Takeaways from the SOTU & GoDaddy Registering AI Agents

Date: February 25, 2026
Host: Ann Berry
Guest/Co-host: John Croteau

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Episode Overview

This episode of Brew Markets dives into three main areas: key market takeaways from President Trump’s record-length State of the Union (SOTU) address, GoDaddy’s evolving strategy in the face of weak earnings (and its push to become the default registrar for AI agents), and how several high-profile companies—namely Kava, Axon, Clear, Home Depot, and Lowe’s—are performing amid current economic and sector headwinds.

Ann Berry and John Croteau balance analysis with wit, highlighting what investors should care about from major market headlines.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. State of the Union Address – Market Takeaways

(00:01–05:06)

• Three Big Market-Relevant Policies:

  • Energy for AI:
    • President Trump announced a "ratepayer protection pledge" mandating that major tech companies meet power needs by building their own power plants, aiming to shield consumers from rising energy costs.
    • Quote (Ann Berry, 01:39):
      “...with the president announcing a new ratepayer protection pledge that requires major tech companies to meet their energy needs by building their own power plants…a unique strategy never used in this country before.”
    • Alternative energy stocks, such as Bloom Energy, responded positively.
  • Retirement Plan Matching:
    • Federal-style retirement accounts with up to $1,000 annual matching to be offered to ~50 million Americans lacking workplace plans. Potential $50B/year flowing into equity markets.
    • Quote (Ann Berry, 03:03):
      “Quick math there… that’s $50 billion a year clearly heading into the markets, in just one person's view, likely to go into S&P 500 index funds.”
  • Tariffs:
    • No new tariffs announced; current tariffs to remain under “approved and tested alternative legal statutes.”
    • Trump suggested tariffs might “substantially replace the modern-day system of income tax,” a notion most economists refute.
    • Quote (Ann Berry, 04:18):
      “There’s, by the way, an idea that most economists actually refute.”

• Other SOTU highlights: drug pricing focus, ban on institutional purchases of single-family homes, and a bipartisan standing ovation for the Stop Insider Trading Act.

  • Memorable Moment (Ann Berry, 04:56):
    “One closing thought, just a moment that struck me as I watched all this, was a bipartisan moment… when President Trump said: ‘Pass the Stop Insider Trading act without delay.’ That one got the House to its feet.”

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2. GoDaddy Earnings & the AI Agent Opportunity

(05:22–12:18)

• GoDaddy Q4 Dilemma:

  • Reported solid revenue ($1.3B, up 7% YoY), but bookings missed ($1.28B vs. $1.3B estimate) and 2026 growth guidance disappointed investors.
  • Shares plunged 16% for the day, down 37% YoY.

• Business Segments:

  • “Core platform” (domain registration, hosting)—large but barely growing; high switching costs lead to sticky customers.
    • Quote (John Croteau, 08:30):
      “It has wild switching costs… I think it’s tough for an individual or a small business to have the time or resources to transfer over to a competitor.”
  • “Application and commerce”—commerce tools, payment solutions; more competitive.

• Stagnation—Vs. Industry & Competitors:

  • Promotional pricing for short-term contracts a sign of competitive pressure.
  • Rival Wix (market cap: $3.5B) rolling out “Wix Harmony,” incorporating “vibe coding”—plug-and-play, AI-driven website generation. Both companies’ stocks are down significantly.

• GoDaddy’s AI Bet – Agent Name Service (ANS):

  • Launching a registry for AI agents’ identities, analogous to human-readable domain names for websites.
    • Quote (Ann Berry, 09:44):
      “GoDaddy is rolling out something called Agent Name Service—ANS—which is a registry system designed to provide secure human-readable identities for AI agents.”
  • Recent partnership with Salesforce’s Mulesoft Agentic Fabric signals seriousness but comes with uncertainty around trust and adoption.

• M&A Speculation:

  • Ann speculates on potential strategic mergers in the sector to cope with technological change.
    • Quote (Ann Berry, 11:35):
      “I'm going to keep my hawkeyes on this because I do like a little bit of M&A speculation… companies that have been around for as long as GoDaddy is… they're going to have to make some bold moves. Just my view.”

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3. Kava Bucks the Fast-Casual Downturn

(12:18–17:29)

• Kava’s Performance:

  • Despite sector-wide struggles, Kava (Mediterranean fast-casual chain) beat revenue expectations ($273M Q4, up 21% YoY). First billion-dollar year ($1.2B in 2025).
  • Comparable same-store sales up 0.5%—weak historically, but better than Chipotle (-2.5%) and Wingstop (-5.8%).
  • Stock jumped 25% on “least bad” results and optimistic 2026 guidance (3–5% comp sales growth).

• Turnaround Strategies:

  • Rolled out an invite-only loyalty tier (“Oasis”) and upcoming menu innovation (first seafood—pomegranate glazed salmon).
    • Quote (Brett Schulman, paraphrased by Croteau, 15:45):
      “One tenant was the loyalty program. They recently introduced Oasis, an invite-only tier designed to recognize our most loyal guests…”
    • Ann Berry's take (16:15):
      “I think Oasis is a terrible name for the invite only tier. First of all, it reminds me of the British band.”

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4. Market Wrap & Sector Moves

(19:40–22:54)

• Indexes:

  • S&P 500 up 0.8%.
  • Dow up 0.6%.
  • Nasdaq up 1.25%.

• Notable Movers:

  • Axon (TASER, AI Police Tech): Up 20% on strong earnings, expansion into AI-powered law enforcement tools.
    • Notable quote (Ann Berry, 20:20):
      “Brittany [Bagley] explained how Axon AI tools assist police officers in generating reports from audio transcripts and accelerate evidence reviews…”
  • Clear (Biometric ID): Up 38% on robust revenue; rolling out new airport E-gates.
  • Lowe’s & Home Depot: Both issue tepid guidance (same-store sales flat to +2%—meaning inflation-adjusted volumes down). Lowe’s stock down 4.5%, Home Depot down 2.5%.
    • Quote (Ted Decker, Home Depot CEO, 22:31):
      “We're certainly bouncing along what we hope should be a bottom.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Ann Berry on inertia as advantage (08:57):
  “Stasis is a competitive advantage, as it turns out.”
• AI Agent Naming—A New Frontier (09:44):
  “GoDaddy is rolling out something called Agent Name Service—ANS—which is a registry system designed to provide secure human-readable identities for AI agents.”
• Ann Berry’s “M&A Hat” (11:30):
  “This is always dangerous, right, when you start doing this… but the market cap of Wix now is $3.5 billion… GoDaddy is $10 billion… I see them both needing to find a strategic way to make themselves relevant, fresh again, and create and really prove to the market there's a way to grow differently.”
• Ann Berry on restaurant loyalty naming (16:15):
  “I think Oasis is a terrible name for the invite only tier. First of all, it reminds me of the British band.”
• Ted Decker, Home Depot CEO, earning call (22:31):
  “We're certainly bouncing along what we hope should be a bottom.”

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:01: Episode open, SOTU summary and three policy takeaways
• 05:22: GoDaddy earnings, business model breakdown, ANS initiative
• 12:18: Kava and fast-casual restaurant sector analysis
• 19:40: Market wrap: major indexes, Axon & Clear performance, Home Improvement sector

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Tone & Style Highlights

• Conversational and occasionally playful; Ann Berry and John Croteau riff about GoDaddy’s ad history and “giddy” ticker symbol.
• Analytical but audience-friendly, translating business jargon for personal investors and consumers.
• Light skepticism and humor, especially in brand and product critiques (“Oasis” loyalty tier, GoDaddy’s past ads).

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Useful Takeaways

• New SOTU proposals could spur significant market flows (retirement matching) and sector shifts (energy policy for AI).
• GoDaddy faces stagnation but is betting on first-mover advantage in AI agent identity registration.
• Fast-casual chain Kava offers a hopeful note for a bruised sector but relies heavily on loyalty and menu innovation.
• Home improvement and software companies face lackluster growth outlooks—watch for consolidation or innovation plays.

This episode is essential listening for investors and anyone interested in how policy, tech, and consumer trends are shaping modern markets.

Transcript

[Ann Berry]

Godaddy became the world's largest web domain registrar. Can it do the same for AI agents? We've got the latest. Neither Home Depot nor Lowe's seems improvement coming soon to the home improvement market. What each said in their earnings this week. And last night's State of the Union address, the longest in history, swept through a wide range of topics. We zoom in for you on where the market focused for Wednesday, February 25th is Brewmarkets Daily. And I'm Ann Berry. More market details to come. But first, 108 minutes. That's last night's State of the Union address in which President Trump surveyed a wide range of topics. And we focused on the nuggets most likely to translate into policy affecting or at least of note to the markets. So here are our three big ones. Number one, energy for AI. Now, I said on the show yesterday that my gut just told me something about this would be announced. And it was with the president announcing a new ratepayer protection pledge that requires major tech companies to meet their energy needs by building their own power plants rather than ultimately having consumers see their energy bills go up, something the president described as, quote, a unique strategy never used in this country before while details are still to be revealed. But stocks in the alternative energy sector bumped up today, repeating the excitement that we've sort of seen before in the market when it comes to new power sources potentially coming to fruit for data centers. One example, Bloom Energy, the maker of solid oxide fuel cell technology that generates on site electricity, market cap around $50 billion. And check this out. Despite EBITDA a measure of profit of only 120 million bucks. Again, relative to that $50 billion market cap, the stock hit a 52 week high today. Well, number two, retirement plan matching. Now, roughly 50 million Americans do not have employer sponsored retirement plans like 401ks and last night plans to offer them access to a retirement account similar to those available to federal workers. He said, quote, we will match your contribution with up to $1,000 each year as we ensure that all Americans can profit from a rising stock market. So the quick math there, if all 50 million ish target Americans get that match, that's $50 billion a year clearly heading into the markets in just one person's view, likely to go into the S&P 500 index funds. And number three, tariffs. No news was good news. Now there were four Supreme Court justices in attendance in the House chamber last night. If you watched it like I did, you could see them sort of sitting together. He had Roberts, Kagan and Coney Barrett, who all voted to strike the IEPA tariffs down. And there was one present who had voted, in fact to keep them, and that was Brett Kavanagh. And Trump made it clear to the audience that he plans to keep existing tariff levels going even if the mechanism by which to do so changes, saying they, quote, will remain in place under fully approved and tested alternative legal statutes. And he doubled down on his desire for the revenue that these generate, saying that tariffs will, quote, substantially replace the modern day system of income tax. So the idea is that foreign nations ultimately take the hit on tariffs and therefore Americans don't have to pay as much income tax for the balance to budget. There's, by the way, an idea that most economists actually refute. Now, the markets expected the status quo to remain on tariffs in some way somehow, but overall markets nevertheless were relieved that no new tariffs were announced last night. Because in this moment, you just never really know. Now, there was plenty more that was touched on last night, including reiteration of Trump's focus on lower priced prescription drugs. That's with the focus on affordability and with bans on institutional purchases of single family homes. Well, we'll post a link to a full transcript of the speech that the Associated Press published and we'll do that in the show notes. But overall, most of what had been covered had been expressed in some way in prior executive orders and policy announcements. But just one closing thought, just a moment that struck me as I watched all this was a bipartisan moment in the speech and that's when President Trump said, quote, pass the Stop Insider Trading act without delay. The act is a step towards stopping Congress members from profiting from private information that they get a hold of for policy making purposes. That one got the House to its feet. We're coming up with shares jumping 20 and 40%. Today. We look at two security companies that are locking down investor interest and we explore earnings results for one fast casual chain that is finally bucking the trend. But first, a word from our sponsor, Charles Schwab. Trading at Schwab is powered by Ameritrade. Unlocking the power of thinkorswim. The award winning trading platforms loaded with features that let you dive deeper into the market. You can visualize your trades in a new light on thinkorswim desktop with robust charting and analysis tools all while you

[John Croteau]

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[Ann Berry]

earnings that came out last night, Starting with from GoDaddy, the major name in web hosting and the world's largest domain registrar, managing over 80 million Brazilian domain names. While shares in the company plummeted today after the company reported a deceleration in booking which may continue through this year. So we're going to dig into it. But John, give us some background. I'm super excited to hear how you say godaddy because the emphasis on the syllables in this. I'm curious to hear your take.

[John Croteau]

I've only been thinking all day. I'll have to say out loud for the first time. So we're talking about GoDaddy.

[Ann Berry]

GoDaddy.

[John Croteau]

Ticker G, D Y on the New York Stock Exchange.

[Ann Berry]

Not good, Daddy.

[John Croteau]

Oh no.

[Ann Berry]

GoDaddy. Okay, got it.

[John Croteau]

GoDaddy. Go, go, go.

[Ann Berry]

Ticker gddy to me sounds like giddy, which sort of is how I'm feeling about this whole thing.

[John Croteau]

Giddy up.

[Ann Berry]

Yeah, giddy up. Exactly.

[John Croteau]

Market cap around $10 billion. GoDaddy was founded in 1997. Popular as a low cost way to register a domain name. Became infamous in the 2000s with its edgy fratty ad campaigns and the Super Bowl. I think many of us remember those.

[Ann Berry]

I don't know. I wasn't here. Give me, give me example of one.

[John Croteau]

Oh, they would take a beautiful woman and have her focused and then she would say something about GoDaddy.

[Ann Berry]

Interesting. Got it. Okay. I'm so. I'm regretful that I asked, but let's, let's carry on. The curiosity killed the cat on this. Okay, got it. Yeah. Yes.

[John Croteau]

Your imagination is better.

[Ann Berry]

Yeah, we should definitely keep going. Yeah.

[John Croteau]

So for the quarter, reported revenue of $1.3 billion, which is up nearly 7% year over year in line with estimates adjusted earnings per share of a $80 beat estimates by 22 cents. And the full year 2025 revenue of $5 billion was up 8% year over year. So in line it's a beat. But the problem was 2026 guidance was softer than expected. The company is targeting revenue growth of about 6% in the midpoint range, which was lower than what analysts were looking for.

[Ann Berry]

So some of those analysts expressed concern specifically about a miss with respect to bookings. In the fourth quarter, the company actually booked $1.28 billion coming down below expectations of 1.3. Acceleration was particularly noticeable was in the division that's called the application and commerce segment. Of the business. And that's one where the company had put in place a new go to market strategy with promotional pricing for shorter one year contracts. So that is a clear, clear sign. When you're offering the carrot to get people to sign up for a longer, a short, excuse me, duration, then you kind of know that you're in a really competitive, tough spot.

[John Croteau]

Right, Exactly. So let's go over those divisions. That's the application commerce division and that's commerce oriented products to help businesses sell online. So store and business productivity tools, payment resources if you want to start a small business, things like that. That's 2/5 of GoDaddy's revenue. Then there's the core platform, that's the Internet infrastructure. Offerings like domain registrations, web and email hosting, that's 3/5 of the revenue. But that is not growing very big. That's just sort of the giant that, that lives within GoDaddy and the core seemed like less of a concern to analysts and let's talk about that.

[Ann Berry]

Yeah.

[John Croteau]

Because I, I have a website on GoDaddy. I use them and I bought that website 10 years ago.

[Ann Berry]

Okay.

[John Croteau]

And I think the annual fee comes up, it gets taken off my credit card. It irritates me. But I think the cost of finding another domain carrier, that might be cheaper and then having to transfer over all of my information, rebuild the website, it has wild switching costs.

[Ann Berry]

Yeah.

[John Croteau]

So this company runs all these domain names and I think it's tough for an individual or a small business to have the time or resources to transfer over to a competitor.

[Ann Berry]

Totally great. Stasis is a competitive advantage, as it turns out. And I too have a GoDaddy account. At some point we'll have to tell everybody what our websites are, but we'll keep that for a special occasion. And I'm thinking about exactly your point. I literally, it was almost mindless when I signed up. The pricing was pretty attractive. The core price, the biggest price I remember paying was for the domain name itself. And then I just kind of autopilot clicked on. Sure, I should get some security feature. I should get an SEO feature. Right. If I want the option to take payment for something at some point, there isn't the need for it today, then why not click to get it? So I think you're exactly right. It's sort of an opt. You don't opt out, you opt in. But you opt in because it's actually relatively inexpensive and it's easy to do

[John Croteau]

so and you're hopeful maybe a lot of people will want to Email me or send me payments.

[Ann Berry]

Exactly.

[John Croteau]

And maybe open to it.

[Ann Berry]

Well, when we disclose your website, that may indeed be the case, John. So just be careful what you wish for. Well, as AI agents start to act like autonomous digital workers, there is an expectation, I think it's incredible, that they will need to be named and authenticated so they can be monitored. So what GoDaddy is doing is rolling out something called Agent Name Service ans, which is a registry system designed to provide secure human readable identities for AI agents. Let's talk about that. Functioning like a DNS for the agentic AI ecosystem, which is a lot of syllables, a lot of way of saying, in the same way that when we go get a website together, there's a domain name, it's registered and there's a URL which becomes part of the brand identity. Right. It's you associate with the website. And we're saying that agentic features AI agents will basically start to get an identity of that sort.

[John Croteau]

And recently GoDaddy made a partnership with Salesforce Mulesoft Agentic Fabric to start rolling that out. And that that just happened earlier this month. So we're going to see how that works. There's going to be trust issues with who are these bots and what are they doing for us?

[Ann Berry]

Let's talk about vibe coding fears because this is the part that is hurting GoDaddy and is causing the anxiety in part around these bookings trends. It could be a successful competitive mode if you get it right. So let's talk about the competitor wix, which has a market cap of three and a half billion dollars.

[John Croteau]

Right. So last month WIX introduced WIX Harmony, which it describes as a vibe coding platform that allows you to generate these websites and that could compete with GoDaddy's application in commerce. GoDaddy doesn't currently have that sort of vibe coding.

[Ann Berry]

Yeah, that plug and play.

[John Croteau]

Yeah, Exactly. But still Wix's stock is down 40% year to date. And so it's a question across all these software platforms.

[Ann Berry]

Well, I can't help myself. I'm getting my merger hat on for just a moment. This is always dangerous, right, when you start doing this. But the market cap of WIX now is three and a half billion dollars. We said at the top, the market cap of GoDaddy is $10 billion. And I cannot help myself when I see two businesses that have natural overlap like this, I see them both needing to find a strategic way to make themselves relevant, fresh again and create and really prove to the market there's A way to grow differently. I'm going to keep my hawkeyes on this because I, I do like a little bit of M and A speculation when it comes to looking at moments like this when there is a technology, technological sea change and companies that have been around for as long as a GoDaddy has since 1997 and is being forced to figure out a way to be there in the future, they're going to have to make some bold moves. Just my, my view. Look what's happening at PayPal. We're seeing it right there.

[John Croteau]

Exactly.

[Ann Berry]

All right, well, I'm going to put my enthusiasm for GoDaddy aside for the moment. Shares were down 16 day. Like so many other software related businesses with the AI sort of sword of Damocles supposedly hanging over their, their heads. It's also down 37 year over year, that stock. We're going to switch gears completely now then and talk about Carver because for a year now we've been covering the steep declines in fast casual. The restaurants like Sweet Green and Chipotle, they've been seeing slow traffic and same store sales and they've been seeing really unkind descriptions of their food. Slop bowls. Slop bowls expression that springs to mind. So we're going to check in with Kava, which is the Mediterranean fast casual chain in line with the rest of the sector. The stock has been down 32% over the past 12 months and it reported earnings last night and it was actually some good news. John.

[John Croteau]

Yes, things are looking up. That's Kava ticker. Kava on the New York Stock Exchange. Yes, market cap just shy of $10 billion. And for the quarter it reported revenue of $273 million which beat estimate up 21% year over year, was that revenue adjusted earnings per share of $0.04 beat by a penny. And for the full fiscal year 2025, the company highlighted its first billion dollar year with revenue of $1.2 billion. And for the year this was a highlight. The company opened up 72 new restaurants, bringing the total Cava restaurant empire to 439.

[Ann Berry]

So this was a great set of results in the context of just how poorly Kava has been performing, not only in a vacuum, but also relative to expectations because this was a darling at a point in time. This was really in that sweet spot of a food genre of Mediterranean that was gathering, picking up steam that the younger demographic really liked in terms bold flavors. Exactly. And it really just took a, took a hit now in the fourth quarter, that magic metric that we talk about, which is Comparable same store sales were up 0.5%, so barely above flat. It's the worst since the company went public in 2023, but it falls in the least worst outcome, the not as bad as feared outcome. So the market actually seemed to think that this was a good thing. Well, earlier this month, Chipotle reported that last quarter that revenue metric was 4.9%. And, sorry, that revenue overall was 4.9 thanks to new restaurant openings. But that comparable metric, same store sales, was down 2.5%. Which puts in context why the market fought a 0.5% up was actually good news for Carver Last week, John, we talked about Wingstop, which also saw a drop in Same store sales 5.8% for the last quarter, but was bringing in revenue from franchise fees. That's an asset light model, which is a luxury that Chipotle and Carver don't have right now. Chipotle and Carver run their own stores,

[John Croteau]

so some of these restaurants are covering up poor same store sales with higher revenue through expansion or through the franchise income.

[Ann Berry]

Exactly. So you, you went into the earnings call.

[John Croteau]

Yes.

[Ann Berry]

Right. You dug into the earnings call. So let's, let's go and see what you found. Because Carver did that for 2026, it believes that comparable sales would grow 3 to 5%, which is a pretty good outcome because when you think about the inflation rate supposedly coming down, they're saying we're taking price and our volume is also set to recover. So I guess the question is why.

[John Croteau]

Exactly. I wanted to know why. I was reading the press releases. It wasn't there. In the earnings call, I found these two nuggets that stood out to me. Brett Schulman, the co founder and CEO of Cava, said that one tenant was the loyalty program. And he explained that they recently introduced OAS invite only tier designed to recognize our most loyal guests and strengthening long term relationships. You get perks, exclusive merchandise, and I've never been invited to an invite only tier. Good for a restaurant that's never happened, but now I think I should start having lunch there every day.

[Ann Berry]

Oh, this spoke to you? So I actually had a different take on this. Can I just. I don't want to be a bit of a negative Nelly, but I'm going to go there. I think Oasis is a terrible name for the invite only tier. First of all, it reminds me of the British band. So to me it does not resonate in terms of a restaurant sort of service. It bears no resemblance whatsoever to what Carver represents to call itself. Oh, wait, why is it called Oasis?

[John Croteau]

Well, they have a track record, in my opinion of having poorly named loyalty tiers previously or in addition to sea, sand and sun. I don't know if one is better than the other. They don't denote a sort of.

[Ann Berry]

No, this should be the name of a cruise ship loyalty program or something. Not, not a land based restaurant. Okay. All right. Well, they tried. So you want to be in the invite only tier. That's Oasis. This the other thing they've been doing, which I'm more focused on because it sort of speaks to me is menu innovation. And I am actually sort of excited by some of the new dishes that they're looking to roll out.

[John Croteau]

That's right on the call. Brett said, I'm excited to share that. Towards the end of the first quarter, we'll be launching Pomegranate glazed Salmon, our first ever seafood offering. And that's interesting because we said this is Mediterranean food. And so I thought, oh, that is counterintuitive that the Mediterranean I associate it with seafood and fish and so it'll be interesting to see how this salmon dish performs.

[Ann Berry]

They need to sea bass dish going. I associate that sort of training. But that's great. I mean you can see Sweetgreen for example, had a lot of salmon dishes. So going right after that particular competitor that they've been compared to a lot over time. Well, shares in carver up nearly 25% today. The market like the least bad news when it comes to looking back to the last quarter. And it likes what it's hearing in terms of the strategy to get back into growth mode. Over the course of 2026, we are expecting earnings from Shake Shack. I I by the way, love Shake Shack. I think it's absolutely delicious and sweet green. So we'll have a fuller picture and we'll come back and talk about again, who are the different demographics? Are these different customers for each of these different chains? Are the dining reasons and occasions that people go that different? Is it the office lunch crowd? Right. Is always at the after, after work crowd, you know, totally, totally different depending on which brand we're actually talking about across the quick service and dining space. Well, let's take a break and when we come back, we take a spin through the headlines and that are moving the markets today. Vaneck believes gold is evolving beyond a short term hedge into a more durable part of a portfolio. With strong central bank demand and ongoing global uncertainty, the case for gold remains compelling.

[John Croteau]

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[Ann Berry]

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[John Croteau]

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[Ann Berry]

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[Ann Berry]

That's why you rack it's 4pm on the east Coast. There it is, the closing bell. The market's wrapping up for the day. While we don't have a ticker tape, instead, instead we're going to throw it over to our human ticker app producer,

[John Croteau]

John that's right, the S&P 500 finished up 8.10 of a percent today and the Dow was up 6.10 of a percent and the NASDAQ closed up one and a quarter percent. Some market headlines Shares in Axon Ticker Axon were up nearly 20% today on fourth quarter earnings and revenue that were both well above expectations. The company is known as being the maker of the Taser stun gun, but has expanded into AI enabled services for law enforcement clients.

[Ann Berry]

So I had Exxon's Chief Operating officer and Chief Financial Officer. So it's a hybrid role. Brittany Bagley on our sister podcast after earnings and I've got to say, just to pause on this for a second, I had a preconception going in that perhaps there wasn't just a ton to talk about if you look beyond the Taser. And I would really encourage you to check it out because it's a fascinating, fascinating conversation. Brittany explained how Axon AI tools assist police officers in generating reports from audio transcripts and accelerate evidence reviews. And by the way, this is a theme that we've seen a couple of places. We also spoke to the founder of Ring and talked there about what is happening in the world of giving law enforcement access to data, including on home security cameras. So this space isn't going anywhere. It's evolving. It's not without controversy of course, but definitely one to spend a little bit of time looking at it.

[John Croteau]

And speaking of security related executives, you had as a guest on after earnings last fall, you spoke with the CEO of Clear Ticker. You of course Clear got its start using biometrics and airport security and is now rolling out E gates, which the company says will speed up the process of getting through security.

[Ann Berry]

That's right. I spoke with Karen Seidman Becker, but fantastic CEO, super, super impressive about lots of things including using things like the ISCAN to access your health care, your medical files, which I thought was absolutely fascinating. Well, Clear reported fourth quarter revenue of $2.4 billion. That was up just under 17% year over year. And in response, the company's Stock was up 38% today. This just does remind me that TSA Precheck is not open right now. Right. Or Global entry because it's part of partial government shutdown. So I'm going to be curious to see what that impact has on Clear in their next quarter. Finally, shares in Home Improvement big box store lows fell over four and a half percent today. And that's after the company issued weak full year guidance. Same old tune. We're seeing these companies punish when they do that. This overshadowed a fourth quarter earnings beat with nearly $21 billion in revenue and comparable same store sales at Magic Metric again was actually up 1.3% while CEO Marvin Ellison had predicted same store sales this year to more or less flat at 0% to 2%, citing quote, ongoing uncertainty in the home improvement market.

[John Croteau]

Meanwhile, Home Depot also delivered better than anticipated fourth quarter numbers yesterday with 38.2 billion in revenue and comparable store sales up 0.4% year over year. Yet guidance for 2026, same store sales came in at 0 to 2% with CEO Ted Decker saying, quote, we're certainly bouncing along what we hope should be a bottom. Bottom shares of Home Depot down 2 1/2 percent.

[Ann Berry]

Yeah, just again to put that in context, when you're seeing at the 0 to 2% same store sales outlooks, what you're basically saying is after inflation, we are looking at this being down, which means assuming that pricing tends to go up in line with inflation, it means that volumes down. That is why the market is having such a negative reaction to that. So we're going to keep on watching. Lots more indications on the consumer coming out with more earnings as the season unfolds. Well, I've got my tea brewing to caffeinate for Nvidia earnings. I've given up coffee for a while and they are coming out literally right now. So I'm going to sprint over to take a look on the latest with the chip giant. That's it for today's Brew Markets Daily.

[John Croteau]

And Brew Markets Daily is hosted by Anne Barry, produced by John Croteau, Tarkab Delatif, and Emily Millar. Our technical director is Uchena Waogu, Jim Orzo is our audio engineer, and the president of Morning Brew Inc. Is Devin Emery. If you have any feedback or company you'd like us to COVID leave a comment or send an email to brewmarketshoworning

[Ann Berry]

brew.com Wake up tomorrow with the Morning Brew newsletter and tune in to Neil and me on Morning Brew Daily. I'll be filling in for Toby the rest of the week with a lot of early morning stuff, so I'm pulling double duty. I'm super excited, but I'll see you back here tomorrow for Brew Markets same time, same place here with John Crateau.