Sherwin-Williams announced their earnings last week reporting a meager .7% increase in revenue for the third quarter of 2024, middling results for the country’s largest paint maker and below estimates previously made by the company.
Sales from stores opened for more than a year increased 2.2% for the quarter according to chief executive Heidi Petz, though that increase was more driven by increases in protective & marine coatings rather than the architectural coatings more relevant to most readers of this screed.
In the more imperative to dealers residential repaint segment Ms. Petz announced that her firm had delivered their fifth consecutive quarter of mid-single digit growth, implying the company may be clawing back volume lost during THE supply shortages in 2021.
Though I don’t think that it’s #Dan or his cache of independent Benjamin Moore retailers she’s clawing it back from; and it seems Petz agrees.
In her remarks Petz referred to “distracted” and “inconsistent” competitors as among the fuels for her company’s growth, diminutive as it may be. With almost 5,000 locations nationwide, Sherwin benefits more than others from the market instability bought on by events at Kelly-Moore, PPG, and even True Value.
Petz also announced a 5% price increase effective January 2025, despite net income which rose 8% in the quarter and raw material costs which have been “flattish” year-to-date and are forecast to maintain that same charting.
In 2023, that sort of greedflation was responsible for more than 50% of the total rate of inflation for the year.
Sherwin’s Consumer Brands division was down 7.5% in the quarter, a result of “soft DIY demand in North America” according to Petz at big box retailers. The struggling big boxes that division’s sole market segment sans the paint maker’s own stores.
Forecasting demand for coatings into 2025, Ms. Petz showed scant optimism and bountiful foreboding stating that “while several signals are beginning to move from red to yellow and some from yellow to green our initial view is that demand is likely to remain choppy in the first half of the year.”
A reasonable outlook for dealers to adopt as they budget for next year.
Despite the undistinguished results the company’s stock price has been on the rise, up more than 20% so far this year. Much of that increase coming last week after it was announced that Sherwin-Williams would replace Dow Inc. in the Dow Jone Industrial Average, that news inspiring most investors to enhance their positions in the stock.
But there are always sellers.
What a Tease!
The Los Angeles Dodgers won the World Series last week beating the New York Yankees in a deciding game five in the Bronx which allowed the boys in blue to celebrate victory on the Yankees’ field. A crushing blow for fans (un)lucky enough to have been in attendance. Not to mention THE effects on game six ticket holders!
In losing the Yankees proved that a $300 million payroll, amongst the highest in the majors, buys you a trip to the World Series once every 15-years. And that if you want to win it when you get there, you’ll need to more than just well-funded.
Baseball fans tuning in this post season and seeing the Yankees for the first time learned that while talented, the team played loose with the fundamentals. That affectation causing the Yankees to lose three of the four World Series games on either baserunning or fielding miscues which fans are unaccustomed to seeing in October.
Or even at the Major League level.
But Yankee fans who tuned in each night were unsurprised by the gaffs which left errors and laziness as the American League Champion’s legacy, despite the team owning one of baseball’s best records during the regular season.
Fire Boone!
Aaron Judge knew how to catch the ball which once dropped by the Yankee captain, began the team’s spiral to demise during that now infamous fifth inning. Pitcher Gerrit Cole knew to cover first base on a slow roller to that bag. Were that not true, neither would have earned a spot on a Major League roster!
But all season long Yankee manager Aaron Boone allowed his team to play with the same lack of intention on display that fifth inning. The laze a terminal flaw even Yankee money could not overcome, leaving Boone’s Yankees to represent THE pinstripes in a manner unworthy of baseball’s greatest stage.
Boone’s failures leaving nobody in the Bronx wondering what George would have done.
#FireBoone, #SherwinWilliams, #Sherwin-Williams, #PPG, #WorldSeries #NewYorkYankees #LADodgers