Doug's Daily Diary | TheStreet Pro

Friday’s After-Hours Advancers and Decliners

BY Doug Kass · May 22, 2026, 4:45 PM EDT

Closing Market Data for Friday

BY Doug Kass · May 22, 2026, 4:25 PM EDT

S&P 500 Sector ETFs and Their Intraday Charts

BY Doug Kass · May 22, 2026, 3:13 PM EDT

Double Exposure

BY Doug Kass · May 22, 2026, 2:20 PM EDT

Nothing to Worry About Here…

BY Doug Kass · May 22, 2026, 1:00 PM EDT

My Tweet of the Day (Part Deux)

BY Doug Kass · May 22, 2026, 12:42 PM EDT

Late Morning Market Stats and Charts

BY Doug Kass · May 22, 2026, 11:55 AM EDT

Waller Bullet Points

BY Doug Kass · May 22, 2026, 11:49 AM EDT

The Adverse Jobs Impact on AI

BY Doug Kass · May 22, 2026, 11:35 AM EDT

Added to My Index Shorts

BY Doug Kass · May 22, 2026, 11:15 AM EDT

Boockvar on Foreign Bond Selling, Walmart Insights

From Peter Boockvar:

Evidence of foreign selling/Walmart provides great info as do others/Overseas data

I’ve argued, as expressed here, that one source (in addition to debt and inflation concerns) of sovereign bond selling in those bond markets with heavy foreign ownership have been foreigners taking money back home, whether to defend their currency from weakness and/or using the money to help cushion the cost of higher energy imports. Bloomberg News ran a story yesterday that “Turkey offloaded almost all of its US Treasuries in March as it stepped up efforts to support its currency during the first month of the Iran war, according to Bloomberg calculations based on US Treasury data. The amount of Treasuries held by Turkey fell to $1.8 billion by the end of March, down from $16 billion the previous month, the data showed. The figure includes securities held by the central bank and other Turkish entities, including corporates.”

For perspective, a year ago Turkey owned $21b worth of US Treasuries and 10 years had about $80b. The Turkish lira is down 2.5% since the war began, by 15% over the past year and by 93% over the past 10 years vs the US dollar.

According to the World Container Index, shipping costs w/o/w rose again but only modestly to the US and more so to Europe. The Shanghai to LA price was up less than 1% but to the highest level since last June at $3,385 per 40 foot container. The trip from Shanghai to NY is at the most since last July at $4,317, up 1.5% w/o/w after jumping by 14% last week. The route to Rotterdam was 15% higher w/o/w.

Shanghai to LA

Walmart certainly has their finger on the pulse of the US consumer no better than anyone. They said this of note:

“When I look at the consumer, especially here in the US, they’re telling us they’re feeling some pressure and they’re looking to Walmart for value. We’re continuing to invest in prices, extending the rollbacks we started in the second half of last year and we now have about 7,200 rollbacks in place.”

“We absorbed approximately $175 million or about 250 bps of operating income growth from higher than planned fuel cost in our global distribution and fulfillment operations…these are real impacts to cost of goods sold for us and our suppliers and if the current elevated cost environment persists, we’d expect somewhat higher retail price inflation in Q2 and the second half of the year.”

They said fashion in particular was a standout in their US Walmart comp growth.

To the lowered guidance for Q2, “We’re not bullet proof to some of these things that are happening in the economy. I mean, fuel prices certainly weren’t where they are right now when we gave our guidance at the beginning of the first quarter.”

“I think there’s a couple dynamics that are worth noting in the first quarter. Tax refunds came in higher than what I think most people expected. And certainly, there’s probably some macro benefit as those tax refunds come in. There might be some upward lift on general merchandise, but I don’t want to ascribe all of that to macro. Like some of what the team is doing is really great. Like we called out fashion as a category that saw outsized growth in the quarter.”

Broadly on their consumer, “increasingly it depends upon which consumer you’re talking about. We see with our customers that the high income customer is spending with confidence into many categories, while the lower income consumer is more budget conscious and perhaps navigating financial distress. And I’ll give you an example, we have a large fuel business and we see that in the most recent period, the number of gallons that customers fill up with when they come to our fuel stations fell below 10 for the first time since 2022, that’s an indication of stress.” I bolded to highlight.

“On inflation, like-for-like inflation was a little more than 1% in the quarter, but through the quarter, obviously, we saw fuel prices go up and as you think about a category like food, it’s heavily dependent upon fertilizer and nitrogen and phosphates are heavily dependent on the Strait of Hormuz and the closure there. So I think it’s possible that if fuel prices persist at this level, you may see some upward pressure on average unit retail prices.”

“Egg deflation for us, lastly, contributed probably to about almost a 100 bps of deflation in that like-for-like inflation number, meaning it would have been higher. We’ll begin lapping periods as we go through the year where eggs weren’t as high. So you’re right, that could also put some upward pressure on the y/o/y inflation number that’s printed.”

Williams Sonoma rose by 6.5% and up for a 4th straight day after they reported. They said this:

“Furniture and non-furniture trends were strong, and collaborations, newness, and innovation all performed well.” Execution did as well.

“We accelerated our market share gains as the home furnishings market declined in the low single digits in Q1.”

“despite our beat in the first quarter, we are not raising guidance as it is early in the year and there’s a lot of uncertainty in the external environment. We are not building in a meaningful housing recovery, and we are assuming continued volatility across geopolitics, war, fuel prices, trade policy, and tariffs and interest rates.”

From Advance Auto Parts and whose stock jumped 14% yesterday:

Comps rose 3.5% as “the Pro channel was the primary driver of sales with consistent monthly growth in the mid single digit range…The DIY channel also delivered positive low single digit growth, reversing the softness experienced last quarter. Our Q1 performance reflects continued improvement in parts availability and customer service, which is helping us respond to favorable industry dynamics.”

More on DIY, “Performance within the channel remains tempered due to the broader inflationary backdrop and stretched household budgets.”

“We are closely monitoring consumer spending patterns, as we transition beyond the recent tax refund tailwinds that have shaped trends in recent months. While higher gas prices may introduce temporary fluctuations in demand, we remain confident in our long term growth prospects supported by robust underlying fundamentals, including an aging vehicle population, growing car park, and increasing miles driven.”

“Same SKU inflation is planned in the 2% to 3% range for the year.”

Ralph Lauren’s stock also saw a 14% spike yesterday with them catering to the upper end consumer. From them of note:

“We drove broad based performance across our lifestyle categories, geographies and channels.”

“Gross margin also outperformed our outlook, supported by our compelling value proposition and pricing power, which enabled further improvements in quality of sales, more than offsetting meaningful headwinds from tariffs as we progressed through the year.”

“Our core consumer continues to be resilient, that is true across all three regions, and we’re encouraged by the underlying growth rates that we’re seeing across EMEA, and North America and APAC.”

Decker’s is benefiting from its HOKA and UGG brands but the stock is down a touch pre-market after earnings. They said:

“In the fourth quarter, HOKA delivered its largest quarter ever, driven by new products in road and trail and robust global DTC growth, including continued healthy gains in the US, complemented by ongoing wholesale momentum worldwide. The UGG brand’s strong performance was fueled by seasonal extensions across both iconic and emerging franchises, primarily driven by strength in global DTC.”

“We have a high degree of confidence in our outlook, but we also recognize the challenges in the current macroeconomic environment.”

I think the stock is slipping a bit because of lower gross margins. “So we’re seeing some of the pressure on the gross margin in the year, really has to do with inflation and higher material costs.”

Shifting to the industrials space, this was from Deere and whose stock fell 5% yesterday:

“Our construction and small ag and turf business units continue to benefit from supportive industry fundamentals. Notably, robust infrastructure spending and rental fleet replacement are driving increased demand for construction and roadbuilding equipment, while small ag and turf is benefiting from a recovery in turf end markets and healthy cash flow in the dairy and livestock sector.”

“Our large ag business, consumption of ag commodities continues to grow, supported in part by increased biofuel use and higher energy prices. And we see the potential for tighter ag commodity supplies in upcoming crop years as higher fertilizer costs potentially impact production levels. However, customer sentiment remains muted despite recent grain price increases as growers’ margins face headwinds from elevated and volatile input costs and high interest rates.”

I agree we’re going to have ‘tighter ag commodity supplies in upcoming crop years’ and we’re still long some fertilizer stocks.

Shifting to some overseas data, Japan’s April CPI ex food and energy rose 1.9% y/o/y which was below the estimate of 2.2% and down from 2.4% in March. The headline gain was higher by 1.4%, two tenths under the forecast. Again, subsidies helped to subdue the data, especially for fuel and education prices. Education prices in particular fell by 10.6%. Due to this, the 10 yr inflation breakeven didn’t budge, hanging around its highest level since the Japanese first issued inflation linked bonds. The 10 yr JGB yield fell by 1 bp.

10 yr Japanese Inflation Breakeven

Finally, in Germany, off the lowest level since 2020, the May IFO business confidence index unexpectedly rose to 84.9 from 84.5 with both the Current Assessment and Expectations components higher m/o/m. The IFO said simply, “The German economy is stabilizing for the time being, although situation remains fragile.” Services saw the biggest improvement and IFO said “Sentiment in the logistics industry remains tense, but is no longer as catastrophic as it was in April. The same also applies to the tourism industry.”

German IFO