Press

Meanwhile, rising corporate taxes are bad for Wall Street because they reduce the cash flow to stockholders and, therefore, shave off every profitable listed company’s intrinsic value. “Higher tax rates mean lower earnings,” Quo Vadis President John Zolidis said. “Higher tax rates also reduce a company’s economic return. A business’ economic return (how much value it creates for shareholders) determines in part what multiple it should trade relative to earnings. A lower return equals a lower multiple. Thus, higher tax rates for corporations will result in lower earnings (the ‘E’) and also justify a lower earnings multiple (how you get to the ‘P’ in the price to earnings ratio (PE).”

“Luckin was already one of the most unusual situations we’d ever seen,” Quo Vadis Capital analyst John Zolidis said in a note. “This continued today as the company announced a change in auditor, with the previous auditor apparently unable or unwilling to complete the job.”

Already Walmart has something of a competitor to digital “neobank” startups in the form of MoneyCard, which can take direct deposits and describes itself as “the only card for all your banking needs.” Reaching the unbanked is key, though also risky. John Zolidis, president of Quo Vadis Capital, estimates that around one-quarter of Walmart customers don’t have a bank account and that half don’t have access to credit.

Containing the virus will make the impact of future stimulus payments much more powerful, according to analysts. Even so, retailers continue to face challenges “because the demand environment is pretty uncertain, particularly on a near-term basis,” said John Zolidis, a retail analyst and president of New York-based Quo Vadis Capital.

There is almost no way for any typical U.S. investor to know what is going on. That’s not a recipe for investment success. Quo Vadis Capital, an independent registered investment advisor, said in a Friday report that the stock is likely going to zero.

“Under Mr. Lore’s leadership, Walmart pursued an aggressive and ultimately successful e-commerce strategy,” wrote retail analyst John Zolidis of Quo Vadis Capital. “We view Mr. Lore’s departure as an incremental negative in that it removes a visionary and entrepreneurial executive from the company.”

“We view Mr. Lore’s departure as an incremental negative in that it removes a visionary and entrepreneurial executive from the company,” Quo Vadis analyst John Zolidis wrote in a research note. His planned exit could also “suggest that further transformational moves within the digital and e-commerce channels are becoming more difficult to achieve.”

John Zolidis, president of Quo Vadis Capital, is bullish about Academy as well, basing what the company can accomplish on Hicks’ history with Foot Locker Inc.

“We followed Foot Locker through this period and feel confident that Mr. Hicks and his team will find operational and merchandising improvements to maintain positive sales and margin momentum for Academy,” wrote Quo Vadis, which is long on the stock.

“Within Walmart’s results are some mixed trends,” said John Zolidis, president and retail analyst at Quo Vadis Capital. “Clearly ecommerce has accelerated, but we can also see traffic was down 14% for the second consecutive quarter and that’s a big number.” Mr. Zolidis gave Walmart a “sell” rating last month, saying that it will be hard for the retailer to upstage its current results next year.

“The bottom-line is that this deal is not material to Ulta in FY21 but does give it another growth channel. A bigger question is why do this? Clearly, it reflects the lack of store opportunity for Ulta in the U.S.,” writes Zolidis in note on Target’s deal with Ulta.