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You're about to make a trade. Which u do you listen to? Is it get optioning those options or let's do a little research? Learn more@finra.org TradeSmart Uniqlo is expanding its U.S. footprint. We explore the Japanese fashion giant behind its growth. Meta announces it's delaying the international rollout of Array Ban. We see where the smart glasses are headed Instead and quote ChatGPT moment for physical AI so proclaimed Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang of the chip giant's latest moves during CES this week we break down the Big Unveil in Las Vegas for Tuesday, January 6th. It's Brew Markets Daily and Diamondbury. More market details to come. But first, she was a pioneering American astronomer who, quote, transformed humanity's understanding of the universe, who won the National Medal of Science and the Bruce Medal and had an observatory in Chile named after her. Now Vera Florence Cooper Rubin is the namesake of Nvidia's next generation platform, comprising six new chips designed to deliver one AI supercomputer. And the Rubin platform has just sent CES this week's Tech super bowl in Las Vegas a buzz after CEO Jensen Huang took to the main stage to expound its virtues. These include greater efficiency, requiring only 1/4 as many GPUs to train certain AI models, and at 10 times lower cost per token relative to Nvidia's highly sought after Blackwell platform. Now the Rubin's efficient advanced liquid cooling system also offers reduced operating cost potential for AI data centers, which by the way prompted a drop today in air conditioning related stocks like Johnson Controls and Trane Technologies. Well, Nvidia unveiled the new system with ringing endorsements from a who's who of tech titans. When you take a look at its press release, it literally just lists praise after praise after praise from the likes of Sam Altman, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Sachin Adela, Sundar Pichai, Michael Dell and many, many other top CEOs in this space. But Jensen Huang didn't stop with the Rubin system to get investors fired up because Nvidia is doubling down on cars or also unveiling at CES its Alpa Mayo family of open source AI models. In what Huang called quote the ChatGPT moment for physical AI, Alpa Mayo processes real time video input from sensors to enable vehicles to think through driving scenarios step by step. So it's a shift away from traditional autonomous vehicle or AV models that rely on pattern spotting. And this new ability to reason and act in real world conditions reflects a next level opportunity to improve the safety of autonomous driving. Well, Lucid Motors, Jaguar Land Rover and Uber are already said to be exploring integration of Alpao into their AV development plans. It was pretty quick. Well, Nvidia stock had a strong but volatile 2025, finishing up 39% for the year. But that was after significant swings with a low of 87 bucks per share and a high of 212. And question marks as we came out of last year did hover around whether the giant with a nearly 4.6 trillion dollar market cap could continue to see higher valuations after what's been an absolutely extraordinary three year share price run. Well, despite today's, well, the last 24 hours announcements, it looks like that remains an open question because Nvidia stock did tick down today. We saw a quick surge up this morning on the back of the market absorbing some of these announcements. But ultimately it's come back down to relatively flat over the course of today. So we're going to keep on watching. Well, coming up, Ford Motor had a bumper 2025 we break down what jacked up sales. But first it is so much fun for us. We absolutely love when we get listener comments and emails, especially when they involve a request for us to talk about a company that isn't necessarily a household name, at least not yet. Like this request we got on Spotify, quote, would you guys mind looking into fast retailing? So we're going to right now and our producer John spent some time earlier looking into some of the background so that we could dig in to where we think the share price has been heading.
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That's right. And fast retailing was unfamiliar to me, which is why I said put that in the setup. But it turns out it's the Japanese parent company of a brand. I've heard of a couple brands including Uniqlo. And so I want to get into the numbers. The company is enormous and the story of the founder is interesting. But Ann, let's start with have you been to a Uniqlo store?
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I have been to a Uniqlo store. I love Uniqlo and here's why you go in. First of all, it's meticulously organized. It's a big spacious, light filled store typically with like a big open front and everything is, is pretty sort of funkily sort of laid out. You've often got this sort of chrome shelving. Everything is sort of color coordinated which I happen to, I was a kid when I played with Lego, would sort of put together all the bricks of a set. Like no surprise there, right? And Uniqlo's kind of got that very organized feel about it. And when you go in, I've particularly gone there for winter wear for pretty good value. You can get like good puffer jackets. You can get good heat retaining. What are the words? Leggings I wear. So if I go long johns skiing. Long johns, thank you. I thought that was a British word. That's why I refrained from it. And so I use that for when I go skiing. For example, they've got great gloves and they're actually known for monochromatic casual wear. So things that are black or they're white or they're often in sort of more neutral or earthy colors. So just for the basics.
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Basics, that was the word I was thinking.
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Yeah, for the basics, for the everyday wear. I think they're fantastic. I've really enjoyed shopping at Uniqlo over the years.
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I haven't been in one of their stores yet, but I have been struck as I walk by that it looks like a rainbow from the outside. It's the merchandise, the way it's laid out. So just some facts about the company. Originally technically founded in 1949 in Japan. First listed on the Tokyo stock exchange in 1997. It trades over the counter as ticker FRCO.
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Yep. Here in the U.S. exactly.
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And that's what the comment on Spotify asked us to look into. Could you look into F R C O? Yes. Market cap of about $112 billion with nearly 60,000 employees worldwide. And they operate 3600 stores worldwide and 2500 of those are Uniqlo.
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So Uniqlo is just one of their brands. There's a couple of others too that I think it's worth just pointing out because fast retailing does own a number. They also own J brand, which is another apparel brand I really like. They've got great jeans sells here in the United States. Theory. Those of you who like to have sort of smart workwear, I've got to tell you many, many suits have made their way from Theory stores into my closet over the years. I'm also quite small and so they run sort of petite, which is very helpful. Helmet Lang is a well known sort of higher end premium brand. Also well known for workwear, Princess Tam Tam. So there's a number of others here. And there's Goo or Gu, which is a Japan focused brand. Also apparel. It's sort of an edgier Uniqlo when you look at it, a little bit funkier. Has one store opened, one store in the United States in 2024 here in New York, with the sort of aplomb going from Tokyo to Soho, which is a neighborhood here in Manhattan. And that's been a key focus area of growth for fast retailing. Thinking out how to take GU actually global. So there's a lot going on at fast retailing. I mean, who knew, right? This is really interesting.
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I had no idea until today. And so looking at the Numbers, fiscal year 2025, the overall global revenue was up 10% to $23 billion. It saw a profit of $3.5 billion. And same store sales across all brands improved 8% year over year. And so some markets are up, some are down. They're having softness in China, but we're going to get into the growth in the United States. This is again, for the last fiscal year, revenue up in the United States 24% to nearly 2 billion and profit up 35% to nearly 300 million. So we're seeing growth here, and that accounts for about 10% of their global sales.
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Right. And so if you also take a look at the fiscal year, just one sort of flag that I'd put on this. Their fiscal year runs not off the December year. So these numbers going through to about August of last year. So there's a little bit of tariff impact that you're seeing in these numbers. But the point was this business has been performing pretty well even in the face of those tariffs. And here's what's really fascinating. This is a company again, We've got Uniqlo, which is traditionally grown overseas, despite having good presence here. We've got goo, which this company is planning to expand into the United States in the face of tariffs. Right. Even though there have been restrictions or impediments perhaps to expanding an apparel across border like this, it's happening. And fast retailing is really wanting to double down on the domestic market here in the U.S. currently, North America accounts for about 10% of sales. There's about 110 Uniqlo stores in the United States today, looking to reach 200 by the end of next year. That's a pretty healthy, robust rate of opening up new stores and basically projecting another record year for fiscal year 2026, with a revenue forecast of $25 billion, top line, $4 billion in profit, which for apparel actually is a pretty decent profit margin. So there's a heck of a lot going on in here. And one of the things that you said a little bit earlier, John, is this balance between trying to grow in the United States, but also in the Chinese market, which is where There has been some presence historically, but you're still seeing the shift again over to the United States.
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And the company's been stressing that they have protected themselves from tariff impact by having control over their supply chain. And so they've been doing a lot of shifts over this year. And like you said, we'll find out more about that in the coming year when we get other quarterly results. Just to wrap it up, Uniqlo operates 78 stores in the U.S. they're adding 11 this year, including four in the new York City, where they already have some others, Chicago and Boston. And I liked this line. In a profile in the New York Times, Fast Retailing CEO was said to view middle America as the final frontier. That is where he wants to see more stores open.
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It's really interesting because when we think about which of the apparel brands serve middle America, right, and we take a look at what's happened to them over the years, let's talk about a couple of those that are actually public here in the United States. So let's talk about the Gap as one example, John. It is in the middle of a turnaround. It's been closing stores since 2020. Hundreds of them, hundreds of. It's also got Banana Republic as one of its brands. It's got Old Navy as one of its brands. Very interesting. If you actually walk through these stores, you can see real signs of the Gap and that the umbrella that is the Gap is trying to figure out what to do to cater to different tastes in middle America. So you walk around the Gap. Now, one of the key initiatives is putting beauty and personal care products back on the shelves as a way to drive traffic. We know that beauty has been a traffic driver in department stores. For example, you walk around Banana Republic, which I did over the holiday period when I went gift shopping, and they're really leaning into sort of more elevated premium feel while at price points that are still somewhat accessible over there. So you can see the Gap trying to figure it out. Then on the flip side, you look at what's been going on in fast fashion, right? We still can see H and M is doing pretty well. We're still seeing Zara's doing pretty well. We have seen, though, players like Shine and Temu go very aggressively after the cheaper end. And you saw Forever 21 declare bankruptcy and go out of business. So it's been a really mixed bag. And again, just fascinating that Uniqlo is looking to lean in to winning the hearts, the minds and the wallets of middle America at the same time. As domestic competition is heating up, we've seen Abercrombie and Fitch turn it around as another example. Here in the United States, people weren't sure that company was going to make it, but they've been leaning in again to try and get access to Middle America's wallet.
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We keep seeing the trend that perhaps shoppers are returning to malls. And the Gap pulled all of its, a lot of its stores out of malls. And so maybe we'll see if they regret that decision. All right, so the CEO, Tara C. Ya, is 76 years old and he's been running this company for decades. Yeah. And he said in an interview he has no plan to name a successor.
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Oh, interesting.
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That's right. I heard him say that in an interview. He's still going to keep going and it's working for him. He's one of Japan's richest people. He's worth about $55 billion.
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Oh, that's fascinating. And actually, when you look at the shareholder base of the company, it is about 38% owned by insiders, which shows that there's still real control that's centralized amongst the core sort of CEO, sort of lieutenants and core team. They're fascinating. Well, look, 76 years old. I mean, let's take a look at Berkshire Hathaway. Right. Warren Buffett, by the way, is now no longer the CEO at Berkshire. He's 90. Sure.
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15 years.
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Exactly. There is still time. There is still time. Well, just to wrap up quickly on the stock, it is up 28% over the last five years over the past 12 months, up 10% in that just one year period alone. Did hit record profits in October. Announced a fourth consecutive year of record profit last year and again doing pretty well in the face of tariff pressures. Announced also a dividend hike back in October. Well, earnings for the business are due out later this week on Thursday. So we would expect to see a bit of an update on how that US Expansion plan is going to expect to see a bit of an update to see if GOO is going to be more aggressively opening its doors in the United States on top of the Uniqlo expansion plans and to take a look to see what the return on investment for all of this is to see whether the same store sales are continuing to support the base of open stores and to see what the payback period is for some of these new walls opening up.
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And Anne, I just want to add one more thing before the show you mentioned. You know, there's a lot of, there's an investing philosophy, invest in what you know, and you pointed out that sometimes this is an example. Like for me, I could see the stores, but I didn't know what company you might be able to invest in if you wanted to invest in this.
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Yeah, I love the fact, absolutely love the fact that one of our listeners flagged this one and had clearly been spending time on it. But it's true, just the curiosity, which is, you know, the next time you walk into a store and you look it up, perhaps see who owns it, you go to Google, who owns XYZ brand some. Sometimes the answers can really surprise you, which is to me, it's part of the fun of this. It's finding these stories. And then once you find them, it's actually the pattern spotting and seeing the familiarity that often these, these stories have time and time again. So we'll keep looking at these. It's a ton of fun. So thank you for sending in that question and do reach out to us if there are others that you'd like us to spend a little bit of time breaking down for you. Well, let's take a quick break and when we come back, let's take a look at some market headlines from Meta, Ford and one of my favorites from jollibee. Well, it's 4pm on the east Coast. There's the closing bell. The markets are wrapping up for the day. Well, we don't have a ticker tape, so we'll throw it over to our human ticker, our prod, John.
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All right, the major indices all finished up today with the NASDAQ up 7.10of a percent. The S&P 500 hit a new record high, up 6/10 of a percent on the day. And the Dow finished up a percent, hitting a new record high, finishing over 49,000 for the first time. Some market headlines. Meta said it's delaying the international rollout of ray ban display AI glasses because strong US demand has led to limited inventories. CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled the $799 glasses back in September. I remember we talked about it. It was a disastrous presentation. But it seems the glasses are being adopted. Shares and Meta were flat today.
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Yeah, we talked about why they're getting adopted, actually, and I thought of them again. So I was traveling over the holidays. I had a beautiful couple of days in Austria. I was in Vienna. And, you know, you could sort of see the use case there as well, folks in the glasses, simultaneous translation from English to German. So, you know, watch out for these because, you know, I am seeing Americans actually wear them abroad, even if international inventories aren't available for sales there, well, we're going to shift gears, pun intended. Talking About Ford Motor Company shares were up nearly 2 1/2% today after the company announced that its US vehicle sales did really well last year. They increased 6%, marking the company's best annual sales level since 2019.
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And among the successful models highlighted by Ford today was the Maverick, which is an entry level pickup truck that comes standard with hybrid power. Ford says that across the board, consumers are looking for the optionality of hybrid at an affordable price. And finally, shares in Jollibee were up over 14% today on news that the Philippine fast food group plans to spin off its international business and list in the U.S. jollibee manages and operates a portfolio of 19 brands with over 10,000 stores and cafes across 33 countries, including an ownership stake in the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf.
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Okay, this to me falls on the bucket of you may not have heard of or have you heard of Jollibee?
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I have not.
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Okay. It is absolutely, absolutely delicious. And this is my personal journey with Jollibee. So my mom's from the Philippines and I remember traveling as a kid to Manila and I remember meeting Jollibee. It's like this delicious. It's like Burger King with the most delicious salsa. It's absolutely fantastic. There are now a couple of branches I've seen on the west coast of the United States, which always makes me so happy and full of nostalgia to see it. So it's absolutely delicious and it's interesting. Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf I obviously first came across here in the US when I moved to America from the United Kingdom. And it's been so interesting to see how Jollibee has grown over time now to over 10,000 stores. It's extraordinary to me, 33 countries and it's really grown in popularity. So again the idea it's going to spin off its international to it right to it based in the Philippines and list it here in the United States is a real sign of something that we don't talk about enough, I think in the markets news, which is the rise and rise of businesses that have grown up in Asia and other markets that have been emerging and they now reach a point where they're big enough to actually start putting some of their assets out for investment in the United States. So just again to focus on this one. This is fast casual dining. It's burgers have been at the core of what it's offered now large enough that it can have an offering in the U.S. let's talk about luck and coffee, right? We've talked about that on the show. That's the homegrown Chinese competitor to Starbucks that's now become an enormous business and is looking to grow aggressively internationally, including opening stores here in the United States. So there's a lot going on in terms of global brands finally becoming big enough to penetrate the US Market. And also specifically historically, certainly in the time I've covered consumer retail, there's been a lot of story of Western brands growing up in the United States and growing up in in Europe and then looking to go to open in Asia as a way of turbocharging their growth. Very interesting. Now to see Asian consumer brands finding a way to appeal into markets coming in the other direction. That's a fairly new phenomenon. I don't think this is the last we're going to hear of this. That's it, folks, for today's Brew Markets Daily.
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Brew Markets Daily is hosted by Ann Berry and produced by John Curto, Tarek Abdelatif and Emily Milian. Our technical director is Lonnie Fiskas. Brittany Dottocco is our audio engineer and the president of Morning Brew Inc. Is Devin Emery.
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Wake up tomorrow with the Morning Brew newsletter and tune in to Neil and Tony Toby on Morning Brew Daily. We'll see you back here tomorrow, same time, same place.