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Many employees can't afford a hefty medical bill that pops up out of the blue. But it happens. And employees who are financially stressed are understandably more likely to be distracted at work, costing their employers greatly in lost productivity. Luckily, Aflac plans help with out of pocket expenses not covered by health insurance and can be offered at no direct cost to businesses. Learn more@aflac.com Frumarkets that's aflac.com Frumarkets
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Macy's says goodbye to the messy racks and hello to resilient consumers. We explore the latest earnings from the retailer vsxy. Victoria's Secret is bringing sexy back to its stock ticker. We unpack the rebrand and survey the companies that have made similar moves, for better or for worse. And Palantir, a protest in New York City, a UK Government contract under scrutiny. We take a look at one corner of the AI trademark for Wednesday, June 3rd. It's blue markets Daily. And I'm Ann Berry. More market details to come. But first, I was walking to the studio today and could hear it before I saw it. And that's a protest outside Palantir's New York office where a group had gathered to quote, demand U.S. lawmakers stop handing over our tax dollars to unaccountable tech profiteers. Well, this moment is one in which the drumb of expanding tech profits is simply getting louder with record breaking SpaceX and anthropic IPOs looming and even old school tech companies seeing a stock price renaissance with Dell as one example, shares there of course up 33% over the past five days alone. Well, Palantir has long been a lightning rod for this wave of tech ambivalence. And this morning's protest in Manhattan caught my eye because I noticed some symmetry across the Atlantic. The specifically because today a UK Government committee published a report that describes Britain's reliance on US Companies in the public sector as, quote, an unacceptable point of weakness and cited Palantir as a specific example of why. Well, among Palantir's high profile UK contracts is one that worth more than $440 million with the National Health Service. That's the state's universal healthcare provider. The Palantir mandate is to collate disparate data into a single system to support decision making by medical professionals. Well, that contract was awarded in 2023 and is to last seven years. But today's report from the UK Parliament's Science, Innovation and Technology Committee recommends that the government exercise a quote, February 2027 break clause, meaning a get out of it clause. And either develop an in house replacement or seek an alternative developed by UK owned and and UK based providers that are more compatible with UK values. Those last couple of words with UK values really caught my attention because while the committee claims that the suggestion is quote, not ideologically motivated, the report does go out of its way to say explicitly that in the United States Palantir has in its opinion, quote, supplied software for military and immigration services supporting highly controversial policies and and activities. Definitely not a judgment free statement. Well, Palantir couldn't really catch a break today because the famed trader Michael Burry disparaged the company as a quote, sandcastle. The stock dropping nearly 7% over the course of today's session. It's still trading at a whopping more than 100 times forward price to earnings ratio. But the story did capture my attention because it just shows the different kinds of pressures that are starting to coalesce around these high profile AI companies. And one question I often get from listeners is what am I reading? So I thought this was also the moment to flag that. I'm currently looking at two books back to back and I'm glad I'm sort of reading them by accident in tandem. After I finished one book called the Infinity machine on Google DeepMind founder Demis Hassabis and interviewed the author here on Brew Markets, that's Sebastian Malaby. I'm now tearing through a new book and this new book is called Project A Marine Colonel, His Team and the dawn of AI Warfare. And it took the author, Bloomberg reporter Katrina Manson, nearly five years to research this, won over 200 interviews to get this book done. And it's all about how AI came to be adopted by the US Military. Featuring of course, Palantir. It's a real page turner. It's hit a number of top book lists already, including from the economists and the Financial Times. So one for the road as summer travels heat on up along, by the way, with those AI IPOs we're going to keep on watching. Coming up in a moment, a spin through the headlines that are moving the markets today, including new unexpected job numbers and what we learned about the consumer from Macy's latest earnings. But first, this episode is brought to you by Liquid. John, how many times have you wanted to move your money around the market but had to wait for markets to reopen? Oof.
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And you're setting alarm clocks in advance.
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Well, in a moment, we'll explore Victoria's Secret sexy rebrand. But first, a few headlines from today's trading session, starting with fresh job numbers.
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According to ADP Research, U.S. companies in May added the most jobs since January 2025, signaling the labor market may be gaining momentum. Private sector payrolls rose by 122,000, outpacing the prior month and exceeding expectations. Also of note, hiring was broad based, with companies of all sizes adding employees primarily in education, health. But gains were also seen in business services, hospitality and construction.
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Well, we're going to be watching this Friday when there's more labor market data out because the official government jobs data will be released. And it's important because it could shape the rate decisions or at least the discussions are leading up to them at the next Fed meeting that is scheduled for June 16th and 17th and will be the first under new Federal Reserve chair Kevin Warsh. Well, moving over to retail, which was filled with news today and shares in Macy's, that's ticker M are trading up nearly 1%. That's after the retailer reported better than expected earnings for its fiscal first quarter and more importantly, I think raised its guidance for the year. Well, overall, that magic metric, same store sales rose 1.6% year over year with the upscales brand Bloomingdale standing out, reporting over 10%. Same store growth.
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Macy's CEO Tony Spring commented on the increased sales numbers, saying, quote, I expected that we would see more pressure, but the reality is the resilience of the consumer defies what they say in the commentary about confidence. He's referring to consumer sentiment hitting record lows in May.
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Well, Macy's is just the latest retailer reporting strength in consumer spending because yesterday Victoria's Secret reported that customers are willing to spend full price on its products. And we're going to come back to that and more in just a moment. Well, we've discussed Macy's turnaround plan here on the show. It includes 200 stores in which Macy's has reimagined the layout and the product assortment and has even moved to host local events.
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So Ann have you been to one of these 200 redesigned locations of Macy's yet?
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I haven't. I'm willing to go. I would like to see it actually, just as a point of discovery. But I gotta tell you, I was skeptical about Macy's. Yeah, I'm glad to have been wrong to be skeptical. At least so far. I did not see the same store sales recovery coming.
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No. Last fall we talked about it in the plan and I'm excited. I'm gonna give them a chance. No more looking at these empty shelves at other Macy's episode.
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You're gonna be there. You're gonna be there. Well, this was Macy's fourth consecutive quarter of same store growth and the share price up 90%, John. 90% year over year. Well, let's take a quick break and when we come back, Facebook did it, Taser did it. And now it's Victoria's Secret's turn a signal to the market through a ticker rebrand.
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So good, so good, so good.
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Well, those of you who listen to the show regularly know that we really enjoy ticker on a sticker, which is our role play game. And at the launch of our show, I christened against his will our producer John as our human ticker tape. So of course we love tickers. We love talking about tickers, we love putting them on a sticker and putting them on our jerseys and talking about the companies underlying them. So of course, when there is ticker news, it catches our eye. And this week it was ticker news about Victoria's Secret. Well, yesterday the lingerie retailer reported quarterly earnings that completely blew past estimates. And the company raised its guidance for the year, prompting the Stock to surge 47% and to hit a record high. Well, all of that Motion happened under a new stock ticker for the company launched just yesterday. That is vsxy. And if that looks like an abbreviation for very sexy. Yes, to those of you who Eagle died, that's intentional.
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It's absolutely intentional. And I pulled up Victoria's Secret press release about this and there are some great quotes in it. And here's one quote. Sexy has always been part of our DNA. What changed is how intentionally we are owning it. So Victoria's Secret, owning that sexiness, which
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they haven't always done by the way they did for a very long time time and then they stopped doing that and went in a different direction. We'll go into that. But in terms of this recent shift, this is all part of the company's turnaround strategy that we've been discussing. Just the context. The company brought in a new CEO two years ago. Her name is Hilary super and she was recruited out of Savage by Fenty which was another lingerie brand, of course, with the mark of Rihanna on it. And prior to that she had a long and successful career at anthropology. And Hilary super, the Victoria's secretary CEO has said from the get go that on joining this company she wanted to reconnect Victoria's Secret with its core identity and that is of course a sexy lingerie positioning. Now super has reignited the pink brand as well, which was the sort of sub brand, sort of collegiate vibes of younger brand. And she's been building back the bra line which has historically been an anchor for the overall company.
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Yeah, we heard yesterday that it is the heartbeat of Victoria's Secret according to her. But let's remember Victoria's Secret face cultural backlash after being associated with unhealthy body IM and response. A couple of years ago it pressed pause on those angel fashion shows and also sales were increasingly driven by fragrances and lotions getting away from the more sexy look. So how does the company square that challenging period it's gone through with owning sexy. Here's another quote from the press release. Quote the company celebrates sexy in all forms, not as one look or one definition, but as a feeling that every woman owns for herself. So Anne, I think this is a successful rebrand. VSXY is so much better than the previous VXY SEO which while working on the show I always thought of viscosity
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whenever I saw insight into how John Cotto, his brain works by the way, and associations. So we made it through earnings season and it's hump of the week. Here we are on a Wednesday. So let's have some fun with this let's, let's take a look at some other ticker rebrands. Some of them are notorious. So we've just had Victoria's Secret go from VA SEO to VS X Y. Let's look at another one that's just happened.
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Yeah, this one was very recently, just last month, the bank of New York, which after a merger is technically known as the bank of New York Mellon Corporation, but it's come to be commonly known as bny. I was on their website today, they're known as BNY for years. And they last month changed their ticker from BK to bny. And the history on this one is great for them to make such a big decision because the bank of New York was founded in 1784 by Alexander Hamilton.
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Amazing.
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It might be one of America's first banks. And in 1790, it was the first company traded on what would become the New York Stock Exchange. So if all companies to change their ticker, it is the OG symbol. So I guess BK, the original one stood for bank, and 200 years later, leadership is leaning more into its BNY.
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Well, I've also got some inside baseball on this too, when it comes to Wall street jargon. So BK has also become a common acronym for going bankrupt. Oh, right. I associate BK with being broke, like. So if you're a bank, you want none of these associations. Right. So the fact the tick has gone to bny, I think for reasons probably been very welcomed in time.
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200 years in the making.
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Yeah, 200 years in the making as the vernacular and the acronyms have evolved. Well, another one. Let's take a look at this big one that came in 2022, which is when Facebook rebranded the corporate as Meta platforms and its ticker flipped from FB for Facebook to Meta Meta. Well, of course, at the time, Meta Metaverse was the term du jour, and founder Mark Zuckerberg estimated that the Metaverse would be worth billions or trillions of dollars by 2030. All that being said, the company's Metaverse division has lost more than $80 billion since its founding, and Meta has quietly stepped back from the metaverse. January 2025 was the last earnings call where a Meta executive actually used the word metaverse. And, you know, at this point, the conversation's clearly shifted so much more to AI CapEx and what the company's doing in AI.
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Absolutely. AI wearables. A whole different world. All right, those are two examples of a rebrand, but I love ex of companies that weren't able to take opportunity of the obvious ticker because another company already had it. So my favorite is the Gap, which went public in 1976 under the ticker GPS, which is hilarious because global positioning systems were being developed at the same time in the mid-70s. In 2024, for the Gap's 55th anniversary, Gap G A P as a ticker became available and the clothier snagged it. And then there's one other one, the Ball Corporation. They invented those iconic mason jars used for canning. Have you seen those?
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Yeah, they're great people. Them now to drink out of water glasses.
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Yeah, if you go to, like, a barbecue restaurant, for sure.
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It's very Williamsburg, too. It's like very cool hipsters. Why I like the hipster mason jar.
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Look, you can have them.
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Okay, I'll take.
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So B A L L was taken by another company.
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Grinch has spoken for two. Anyway, I'm sorry, I interrupt.
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So when the Ball Corporation went public under BLL in 1972 and they changed to B A L l on their 50th anniversary, very similar to the Gap when Ball was available. Just as a side note, I would like to talk less about Brooklyn, but more about the Ball Corporation in a future episode. We've talked about corning glass history and then it going into other areas. Ball similarly invented those canning jars, and they've gotten into aerospace. They've gotten out of aerospace into security. It's an interesting company.
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All right, we're going to dig into that one. I won't mention Brooklyn again, but we're going to dig into Ball and mason jars because I think that's very cool. Well, one last one. And this is similar to the Victoria's Secret change, where you have a ticker which isn't identical to the name of the company, but clearly trying to send a very intentional signal by close association. Axon. Let's talk about Axon. I'll unveil why a little bit more in a moment. But Axon is the maker of the Taser stun gun, and the business went public in 2001 under the ticket TASR. So phonetically similar to Taser, Axon has since expanded beyond that one device, and the company's been positioning itself much more broadly as a safety technology company with marketing surveillance devices like body body cameras and AI assisted digital evidence management when it comes to the law enforcement groups that use their products. So in 2021, the company switched to the ticker Axon. That's a X, O, N. Well, this Friday for the episode of Brew Markets that's dropping just before the weekend I'm going to be joined by the president of Axon, Josh Isner, where the company is part of the massive security rollout for the World Cup. So we're going to talk about how the company is involved in that as well as Axon's move into counter Dr. Drones. All over the headlines at the moment. Seeing a lot of market moves in that space for military use so far. And talk about too, what's going on with Axon's international expansion plans. So looking into countries that have more centralized law enforcements than you have in the United States, so that's going to be dropping on Friday. More serious stuff than ticker changes, but interesting. I love these stories of how companies evolve because they so often reflect what's going on much more broadly in the macro context at the time. Well, it's 4:00pm on the east Coast. There it is, the closing bell. The market's wrapping up for the day and we don't have a ticker tape, but we're going to throw it over to our human ticker, of course to our producer John that's right.
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Stocks were down across the board today as US Iran tensions ramped back up and the major indices breaking their streaks of all time highs today, the S&P 500 finishing down three quarters of a percent, the Dow down 1 and 210 of a percent and the NASDAQ finishing down 910 of a percent for the day.
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Well, it does feel like we are in waiting mode for these IPOs. Just as a reminder, SpaceX rumored to be going out next Friday. We are waiting with bated breath. But in the meantime, that's it for today's Brew Markets Daily.
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Brew Markets Daily is hosted by Anne Barry and produced by John Croteau, Tarkab Dalatif, Avni Laroya and Emily Millarn. Our technical director is Uchena Waoghu, Jim Orzo is our audio engineer and the president of Morning Brew Inc. Is Devin Emery. If you enjoyed today's episode, please share with a friend. If you did not enjoy the show, tell all of your enemies.
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Wake up tomorrow with the Morning Brew newsletter and tune in to Neil and Toby on Morning Brew Daily. See you back here tomorrow. Same time, same place.
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