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[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
It is. It's -- our Australian filing is itself a LEO filing. So once we bring that filing into use, it will crystallize our rights. But on top of that, we have made multiple other filings through multiple administrations.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Yeah, actually the supply chain for our Infrastructure and Automotive business in our IoT businesses were actually somewhat different. So the fact that we are divesting I&A actually simplifies our supply chain to a significant degree, and that is one of the benefits that we get. So there were a number of foundries that were used on the I&A side, that are not used on the IoT side. We have a very close relationship with TSMC, a 25-year partnership with those guys, and they've done a good job for us. While at same time, everybody is struggling with capacity. And so we're looking at additional relationships there, that could expand capacity, and also continuing to work with TSMC to ensure that they are making the investments, and we have access to sufficient capacity to support our growth.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Thanks and good morning. I wanted to follow up on lease rates in North America. It sounds like absolute lease rates have continued to improve sequentially here in the second quarter. Could you give some more color around the magnitude of that improvement that you saw, and any updated thoughts on the LPI for 2021?[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
And just to...[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Yeah, absolutely. So we had really two types of costs this year or in 2020 related to our optimization of our cost structure. First with workforce optimization that was early in the year, it was really meant to address the immediate need to respond to the changing demand environment that was presented by COVID. We spent about $38 million on workforce optimization. We then turned our sights on transformation initiatives that were specifically targeted at changing the shape and the structure of parts of our business that are effectively positioning us to be more agile going forward. We invested about $176 million into those transformation initiatives.
We expect that the total run rate benefit from the $214 million of investment will be around $369 million of cost that's being offset in '21 by the resumption of -- we have some temporary costs that were cut in 2020 that will come back. But net-net, we think there will be about $100 million of incremental savings in 2021 from the full work that we did in 2020 related to cost management. And this is spread across all three of our segments. Advisory was the largest, we estimate about 60% of our cost takeout was from Advisory, with about 30% in GWS and the rest in our REI and corporate functions.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Thanks, Samik.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Vijay, this is Paul. While we haven't provided specific details in the past or today about the level of backlog, it continues to grow at a very healthy rate. It also provides a lot of visibility into the near-term or medium-term demand. And we're seeing growth in the backlog in all these end markets and in the submarkets like xEV and ADAS within Auto and then within the markets of Industrial as well.
So we're very excited about that. It's great visibility. And we continue to look at ways on how to address that.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
No, it's just -- don't think it's going to be helpful with trying to paint the picture forward. It just was so different. On the PPE front, we've had -- now had two quarters where the run rate on that was $4 million. So that's a pretty fair proxy for what you should expect and we'll see. We continue to experience that we've all become so used to carting around our own hand sanitizer, we bring it into a store and wherever we go. So there is less that falls on a retailer to supply there, but masks and cleaning supplies and softcovers, all of these things are with us for a while. So that's a pretty good run rate to use as a proxy for now. Dick, you want to talk about products?[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
I can't say what others will do with the news that they have, but we certainly think this is the lowest capacity add available to the market, much, much lower than any greenfield would be and probably even lower than most other expansion can be. So, we'll let others make their decision from there.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Yes. We got a sizable tax benefit. Depending on what discount rate you use, somewhere between $40 million and $60 million, $65 million. That, obviously, is included.
We paid for that in the $965 million that we bought. But it reduces -- that tax structure that arises from the deal will basically reduce the annual cash expenditures for taxes on the Cobham business. But it's roughly $40 million to $60 million of NPV the way we sized it.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Sure, Tobey. And thanks for joining the call, and I appreciate the question, and it's a great question. And I think, first, the hiring starts with the reputation that you have as an employer in the region. And in our real growth markets of the Philippines, of the Jamaicas and of the Nicaraguas, the IBEX brand is second to none.
And so when we need to ramp up for -- and I'm telling you for on-demand capacity is really where the industry is right now. We are able to attract a significant number of candidates that want to come in and work for IBEX. And especially in markets like Jamaica or Nicaragua or provincial plays in the Philippines, where tourism has historically been a big part of their economy, we're able to attract some great people and great leadership. And so we've been able to fill 100% of our classes globally.
We've been able to fill management very easily as we scale. Some of that comes from internal. Some of it comes from external. And then the challenge is how do you train them.
And between our Wave X training modules that are in center and also have been adapted now for work at home, we're able to get our agents trained, skilled and ready to take phone calls and digital contacts real fast. And so we feel like we have excelled in this industry versus anybody in this industry.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Well, on the second part of your question, Deane, yes, I mean, one of our big themes for Carrier since we spun has been focus on simplification. So if you think about our JV portfolio, we started with 40 minority JVs, and we'll end this year closer to 32. So we have been taking a very clinical approach to reducing the number of JVs for various reasons. There are some that really pose risk, but not a lot of value to the overall business. So we have reduced some of those.
And then there are some that we still have that we are in discussions to reframe them a bit, especially if it's in a very strategic area for us, and we're not consolidating sales or EBIT, that's an area that we're in discussions with our partners on. With respect to the specific product issue that wasn't one of our minority JVs, I wish I could say that. In things we control, we've never had our own product issues. So we're not disparaging the JV because of that one issue, but it does highlight that we do want to have more controls in place in some of our critically strategic areas.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Good morning.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Hi. This is Ivy on for Derik today. Thank you for taking my question. Congrats on the T-Detect COVID progress there and the LabCorp partnership.
Just curious, how do you see the tests rolling out as estimates or discussion regarding how the immunity timing evolves? Just curious how that all plays out. And then what have you seen in terms of the uptake since your soft launch back in December?[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Yes. I think -- let me again start by answering and throw it to Jason. I think it's -- you got to think of sort of excess capital in two buckets here. One is the $300 million-plus that we will get from the gas LDC sales. Since we don't expect that transaction to close until about the end of the year or thereabouts, that's really capital we can spend in 2022, which will go into rate base and start impacting earnings in 2023. We, of course, have a lot more optionality around the reinvestment of the O&M savings. And I'll let Jason give a little color on how we're thinking about that, where we might spend it, how we might spend it.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Yeah. So I would expect that for 2022 on a normalized basis, Rob, that you'd see a pretty significant reduction in sustaining capital expenditures, and I'll just give you a sense of that. I think when you look at sort of the numbers that we're outlining for 2021, rough range of numbers. I think like CAD90 million to CAD100 million of that being largely on coal to gas and a lot of that is over the conversions that we're doing now. That will fall to a fraction of that on a normalized basis as we go forward and then there'll be various puts and takes among our gas fleet, our hydro facilities and wind. Wind is highly predictable, relatively modest capital expenditures. With hydro, we have maintenance work. It comes in periods and we have some dam safety work that we have, but overall, a significant reduction year-over-year.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Good morning, Jackie.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Thank you, Sadie. This concludes our conference call and we appreciate your participation and interest in Southwest Gas Holdings, Inc. Everyone have a great day. Thank you.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
I would say, there's two things that we're hearing pretty consistently. One is, are you guys ready for a pretty dramatic snapback in demand. And our answer is absolutely we're ready. The second thing is on the upstream availability of ingredients, and I think there's been innumerable new stories of kind of upstream raw material shortages from computer chips to copper, etc. I mean we've all seen the stories. And so, that would probably be the second theme we're hearing, Alex, is just do you have any upstream pinch points or supply constraints? And again, to date, we feel very confident in our procurement and sourcing efforts to make sure that we have good flow of raw materials. We obviously source raw materials from around the world. And we feel good at this point that we have the right flow of raw material ingredients into our manufacturing plants to support the snapback in growth.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Hey, good morning, guys. I wanted to see if I could get you to talk about what you're seeing in different regions of the country. You're obviously in Texas, Florida, California, if you could comment on some of those markets, Michigan. And, Dan, you called out some geographies where you're outperforming from an EBITDA perspective as well. So again, just wondering if you can comment on what you're seeing regionally, both from a volume perspective and what's driving that EBITDA outperform in certain markets.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
So right now we have indications and obviously in general surgery and then in thoracic cavity and then in pediatric applications. There is some interest being expressed about broader pediatric application indications, meaning smaller patients, which would involve a tremendous amount of clinical work because the smaller of the body the more issues you potentially get into with pressurization. So that would not be a quick turnaround. That would be a long-term study clinical body of work that would have to happen. But again we're seeing great success with AirSeal. And then geographically, I think it's more about the channel development and feet on the street. The partnership in robotics continues to remain strong and continues to be a mainstay of our U.S. business and it's growing outside the U.S. And then the -- as we've said from day one, the opportunity to get into general laparoscopy procedures is really the very large market. And we've said before, our international team has demonstrated the ability to do that and part of putting more feet on the street is to shrink territories and get people to focus on all opportunities that AirSeal presents. And I think we're well on that path.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Hi, Joanne. In terms of debt paydown goals, and we've been pretty clear with the rating agencies on this as well. We really look at debt-to-EBITDA as the ratio that we focus on and really bringing it back down to kind of what are historical levels 2.5 times roughly. And if you think about the next couple of years, it means a pay down of $2 billion-plus in terms of what we'll do. We -- if you think about what we paid off in the fourth quarter and what we paid off this quarter, we're about $1 billion toward that goal. We probably have an opportunity to pay down a little more debt this year that we'll take advantage of, too. And so that's where we think we'll land. Once we do that, we think we'll be in a solid territory to sort of accelerate our programs around looking at, sort of, larger opportunities. But the organization is very focused on cash flow and reaching those debt pay down goals.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Yeah, so I tried to answer -- multi-billions of dollars of fundraising for this year for our private credit products, as I broadly laid out to you. With respect to performance, look, all credit, particularly non-investment grade credit got hit fairly hard in the March-April timeframe when the bottom fell out. We've seen really good recoveries both in PCI and middle market lending business and stability in our US Commercial Real Estate business. I think the US Commercial Real Estate credit marketplace is going to take years to work out generally. We feel we're in a very good competitive position. But there are challenges certainly in that space. But all-in-all, I think our performance has been quite competitive.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Okay, great.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Good morning, Chris.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Ryder Mexico continues to be a big opportunity. First of all, it's a very well-performing operation and a good opportunity for us, especially as we get more nearshoring opportunity. So I'll let Steve give you an update on that. But I mean, that's the big story there is that it operates very well, good returns. And we're seeing continued growth opportunities there with multinationals that are continuing to open up in Mexico. Obviously, now with COVID, it's been a little bit slower. But Steve, is there anything else we need to add to that?[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Yeah. We're looking at that business through that strategic work and assessing both the product offerings, the type of projects they pursue and looking at in addition to the cost structure overall that that business has and how can we strengthen that. So, we're not giving at this point margin guidance or communicating a target. We'll actually get through that through the strategy work. But certainly, we see an opportunity to improve significantly from where they are.
And our strategy work has really pointed both from an external benchmarking standpoint to significant opportunities to raise that margin as well as taking another look at our product mix what types of projects we pursue through that business and how we can really leverage where they have strong differentiation in the marketplace that delivers value for customers that in turn generates better price and therefore better margin for us going forward.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Yes. So first of all, thank you, Christian. The target is to do 600,000 tonnes of certified green steel by 2022, and this is primarily a West Europe offering at this point in time. We are examining what we can do in other regions and other markets as we speak.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Bakersfield is contributing and it did contribute immediately. I would say that -- I would be remiss if I said that they weren't impacted by COVID. They are a surgical hospital that does have an emergency department in Southern California where COVID rates have been exceptionally high. We love -- and maybe, Eric, I don't know if you want to talk about the overall opportunity there. We think that's a fabulous asset. We are pleased to be an owner of it, but I think it's got a little bit of a slow start.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Happy to do that. Appreciate the question.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Well, really. Yes. Of course, the Board takes into account management's recommendation, you're completely right. And -- but from the Board perspective, we simply looked at it that we wanted to have a stabilized target payout ratio of 80% and we thought that that made sense given our life science and MOB-centric portfolio mix along with the substantial development pipeline and land bank densification opportunity that we had in front of us. We looked at the current dividend yield at 4% and felt that to be a very strong and sufficient yield and we wanted the $150 million or so of stabilized retained earnings as we went forward for reinvestment into our accretive development and densification opportunities. So those were all the different things that we discussed at length over a period of about three quarters as we came in for the decision of $1.20 per share.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Yes. Bose, this is Nathan. It's a good question, something that we obviously spend a lot of time talking about. We have continued to pay the shareholder dividend as a form of capital return through this period. We do have about $800 million at the holding company. So I think we have options. But what we said last quarter, and I think it's still true is that meaningful capital return, given the scale of our business really can't start until dividends from the operating companies start again.
So while we continue to evaluate these things, I'd be more focused on what happens after the GSE kind of -- the expiration of the GSE temporary rule that requires their approval. I think we've had really constructive conversations with our regulator and a lot of conversations internally as well about how we want to approach that going forward and continue to view that as really the thing that's going to drive kind of our capital return plan longer term. So don't have, I guess, a lot more to guide on today.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Well, as you look at the numbers, we've made some progress and we certainly want to make more. In that business, when you're growing it, there are some fixed costs and then there are some costs that you have to hire ahead in order to get the benefit of. And so, we've hired a lot of people this year. And so, one of the things that we look for is over a period of time, probably at least six months to a year, maybe a little bit longer, those folks would reach a level of efficiency. And so, that will be helpful to us.
As we add scale to that business, it helps us with fixed costs. Adding dollars to the net revenue line, is useful to us because it will help us with achieving bottom line improvement because again of the fixed cost nature. We have a larger fixed cost amount in that business than you might expect because of the investments that we've made in technology to advance our digital capabilities. And so, -- but I think, the main thing is scale and dollars to the net revenue line. And that would be true in every business line that we have in Asset-Light.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Yeah. Entertainment on like I said, on Page 27 of our sub-data we provide tenant category. So we have in there, it's about 2% of our ABR and 2% of our leased square footage. We have in there, movie theaters, we have really one movie theater -- large movie theater in our portfolio. We have some venues like activity centers, like a birthday party, that sort of thing. So, a small group and then one is there in Austin, that is probably half of that total and they are reopening and doing better.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Yup. Thank you.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Hello, David.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
No, that's, that's accurate, Kevin. And we have said, last quarter that there will be something that we would certainly address and look out and the second half of this year and certainly that's what our plans are to do. But that is nothing really new to announce today certainly.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
So at the -- I assume you're referring to the smartphone space, right, the mobile space, yeah?[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Hi, thank you. Obviously you have doubled your off-premise sales per unit at Olive Garden, basically, fourth quarter '21 versus fourth quarter of '19. So that does leave a pretty substantial amount of capacity that kind of remains for on-premise dining. So I wanted to ask a few points on that. You mentioned that much of off-premise is being used as a home meal replacement that would suggest, I guess, the lack of cannibalization for on-premise dining, but can you possibly update those if you know the cannibalization numbers between is the percentage of off-premise sales that are coming from on-premise.
And I guess at this point, I mean do you think it's opportunity and necessity to basically bring back those on premise customers who were resolved or just so busy before that maybe people weren't getting to at times that they want. But just think about, you're getting that off-premise sales per on-premise sales per unit, back to the 100% level that you previously had in 2019. And if there is anything that you can talk about whether it's age cohort that level of vaccination state by state what have you that shows different levels of success of achieving on-premise sales '21 versus '19. Thanks.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Joanne, do you want to take that one, please?[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Thank you everybody and have a nice day. Thank you.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
David?[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
I would say that we're certainly focused on that. We've -- we recently upsized the -- last week, they upsized -- the Board upsized our allocation. We've made some bigger purchases this year. And we believe that our share price, where it currently is, is a great investment for us. We've delivered great message around our multifaceted growth platform. We have a successful track record. We've been executing and outperforming. We're gaining share in our markets and we continue to deploy our internal programs around JEM that will continue to allow us to increase our cycle time, increase productivity and deliver for our customers.
We delivered our updated long-term revenue growth and margin targets at our Investor Day, which we believe in fully. And with the strong backdrop of great market conditions and our strong operations, we believe this will continue for some time. So we believe in ourselves and we'll continue to invest there.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Good morning, and congratulations on excellent execution.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Yeah, Darren. Good questions. So the digital growth has been obviously accelerated through the pandemic, but we believe that it will, but that trend will continue. When we look at our sales pipeline of new opportunities they are overwhelmingly digital versus physical and that digital presence there and also gives us a great way to enter new geographies usually, and as we discussed previously, the technology--with the underlying technology with the epay is what's enabling this whole digital adoption and distributions. So in summary, we're operating under the assumption that will continue to deliver double-digit growth in epay into the future.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
All right. I won't say it, but thanks a lot.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Thank you.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Hi, Steve. Good morning, they're up, and they're up sequentially. We've raised prices beginning -- at the beginning of the second quarter. And I'm just amazed at the much -- how much pricing power we actually have given the difficulties that we all know about and the relatively low marketing spend that we've put out in the last 1.5 quarters or so. And so it's -- when you hear about inflation, inflation means prices go up, and it's good to see that we too are seeing the positive side of inflation, which is pricing power. So we're very pleased with that.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
I'd say we're forecasting bottom line gross margin down a bit in both Q3 and Q4, and that's largely related to the transportation costs that I mentioned. We're -- we don't spend a lot of air freight typically in this business, and we're spending several years' worth of air freight based on our forecast, given the delays in production. So that will weigh on gross margin. I would say some of the more fundamental building blocks, though, continue to be a positive story. We expect to continue to make progress with price realization. Product costs are expected to be down largely through the second half of the year. So more on a product margin point of view, I think that will continue to show expansion. But we'll give some of that back in the form of these really higher-than-typical transportation costs.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Thanks Don.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
The answer really is yes and yes to both parts of your question. So when we reported first quarter results, we telegraphed that these were really beyond exceptional results. And there was a lot of deferred work that was getting done. I think we are now -- that deferred work is now behind us.
Then there may be still some sputtering elements of it but this is growth in the quarter. And really, you should -- may I suggest -- use this opportunity to suggest. Combine the two quarters when you're looking at margins and things like that because you could get from one quarter to the other certain expenses and the deferred revenue elements. That combined margin level is more appropriate.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Hey, guys, thank you very much. Congratulations on the superb quarter. Two questions, Frank, one for you. As you talked about how the decisions are increasingly being made by the C level, not it's just the CIO, but CEO level.
Can you talk about how they are looking at Snowflake in relation to their digital transformation initiatives? Generally here, customer experience, employee experience is fairly digital, but help us connect the dots, what are your CEOs -- customer CEOs thinking in regards to Snowflake and how Snowflake specifically drives their digital transformation? Maybe just on top of that. Thank you.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Yes. Diego, likewise, we are also concerned with that and we are studying and analyzing all the solutions we can have for this problem. And in the near future, we can choose one of the options we have, and we'll keep everybody posted about it.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
It's not necessarily an easy thing to do. A lot of our products are built on covering the entire family. There are measures that we could get you there. I don't have it handy, but it's something that we could certainly present in the future.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Wi-Fi 6 is a new standard for connectivity, Wi-Fi 6 is even the latest one. And the -- our business is really is to enable customer to grow fast in the customer end market and what we see in terms of customer going into new market is access point, Wi-Fi access point and all sort of IoT devices starting from the TV, smart speaker, all sort of wearable devices and even automotive to do the Wi-Fi in the car -- in the cabin itself. So those are the customers, these customers are usually customers that are not familiar with connectivity and would believe if somebody expert or specialized to provide them these total solution compliant with the standard interoperable wearable device. That's something that we -- CEVA is the only today IP company that -- the only go-to guide today in the IP space, if you're looking for IP, I don't have any other one that is closable and competence with us. That's the reason that we see all this.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Yeah. I think the sample size, to give you rough guidance; I think it will be at least in line with our chronic pain studies, if not slightly larger. I think we certainly want to make sure that it's well-powered.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Good morning, Steve.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
I would like to thank all of you for your questions. We value for your perspective and we appreciate the time you've taken to be with us this evening. Please stay safe. Thank you.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Thanks, Mathieu. We have a last question for this, and then Paul may have -- anyway, last question.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Sorry, sorry, I didn't catch that.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Yes. I can take that one. Our mix remains fairly constant: roughly 20%, new pool; 20%, remodel; and roughly 60%, aftermarket.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
So on a quarterly basis, you should estimate roughly $200,000 to $300,000 expense a quarter.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Good morning. Thanks for the question. Yes, I guess, first off, Michele, I wanted to go back to the Zero-Sugar product. Can you share a bit in terms of what's enabling that relaunch? Is there anything there, recipe-wise, that's different? And then where do you expect it to price relative to the baseline portfolio? And is it fair to think that it's, I guess, at least, gross margin neutral relative to the base?[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Absolutely. As we look at '22 and '23, we absolutely think that you're going to see a greater than our historical average from a year-over-year price increase. As I mentioned this past year, when we look at our domestic volume, we repriced about 45% of our large customer segment, and quite frankly, we actually did most of that in the back half of this year. So we're going to have some lapping. You're going to get benefits of those renegotiations in the back half of this fiscal year. We're going to get them in the front half of '22. In addition, we still have to reprice the rest of the large customer segment. And really importantly as Fred mentioned, it's not just about the topline yield, it's about really making sure that our price matches our cost, and we're getting very, very focused on that, very disciplined, making sure that customers that have large package, they have the right surcharges, the right structure there, those that have the highest peaking factor, really pay for the incremental labor at peak. And so it's not just about the top line, which I am -- I want to be clear, I'm optimistic about, but it's really about aligning our price strategy with our cost. And we do think that that is going to have tremendous momentum next year. And quite frankly, the year after, as well.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Well, Matthew, thanks. Yes, I mean, of course, I won't comment on specific competitors and their actions. But what I would say is that factored into our plans, right, is a few that, yes, there will be some supply added over time. It's just that all of that announced supply is likely to be a lot smaller than the growth in demand. And when you marry that up with the fact that there's still a lot of core quality markets out there and, certainly, there's a lot of value left to lift in the ECU, which informs us about how we're going to run Olin and what assets we're going to have in our future portfolio, then I only see the overall outlook as positive. So the simple answer is, look, we certainly expect there to be some supply expansions out there.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Sure. So where we see things, certainly, it's an attractive market today, especially from a cost of debt perspective, and thinking about what that is versus our current cost of debt, it's certainly attractive. What I would say is we don't really have a need for it in the near term, certainly evaluating whether there's something opportunistically to do the balance sheet. But frankly, I think where it will come into place will be potentially later in the year, as we think about putting capital to work in deployment into acquisitions on the line and then looking to take that out into longer-term debt such as the public bond market.
So probably not in the first half of the year, more likely something that would be accessed later in the year.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
I think, Daniel, what we're seeing is really a balance between the two of the main items. One, the infrastructure is old. And the need to replace windows from the R&R side continues to be there. And the fact that across all of Europe, there are some very strict regulations as to energy efficiency requirements when you replace anything on the home.
And our products fit very well into that application, better than most. That is a significant benefit and it is unrelated to COVID. The COVID piece, as it relates to the restriction on travel, I do think that that's playing a significant piece, and will, in the near-term because I don't see the travel opening up. So across the board, you're seeing people with the discretionary income with the inability to travel and go places or putting money back into their homes.
And we absolutely are seeing a benefit from that. Those are the two main factors.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Gustavo, Roberto here. There are a couple of things that are important. Right? So one, some of the markets in Europe actually had to go through much tougher restrictions than we already see, in generally, in Latin America; not saying that the situation is easier or more comfortable. On the contrary, there are some very critical situations in Latin America, but we do see some restrictions that are really tougher in some markets, especially in Central and Eastern Europe. So that's one.
Two, it is a fact that some markets in Eastern Europe, and that's why we're putting a lot of focus in U.K., has lower adoption in digitalization than in some markets here in Latin America and we are seeing Brazil growing also in adoption as we are seeing in U.K. So that's a second factor.
The third factor is a category dynamic. In Latin America, Avon also has a higher percentage of their business in Home & Fashion, which actually, as we highlighted, is performing very well in the markets in Latin America. Avon International doesn't have that. Avon International is highly dependable on fragrance and makeup, primarily, which are the category most impacted by the crisis and by the restrictions with the lockdowns.
So if you added those three things, you do have a nice picture in terms of some of the difference in performance. But the fundamentals, I would say, they are actually marching very consistently in terms of the new commercial model that was pilot and now it's being rolled out in Brazil. Now, it's being pilot in Mexico and the same thing is happening in some key markets at Avon International.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Thank you. Sure.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Thanks Gus.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Robert?[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
I'm going to let Bill speak to that because he's been doing a lot of internal communications of our three-year strategy. We're very excited about it. But Bill, why don't you answer that question.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Yes. So I looked at Florida's number yesterday and Florida looks great. I would tell you the only challenge there is on the labor side. It's that competing against somebody sitting on the couch.
And so while we didn't have layoffs as a result of COVID, as the business grows, we have a need to add drivers, add technicians. We have a number of open recs there and I'm not going to tell you it's been easy to fill those. But we do think that's temporary. We don't think those -- that we're competing against the government forever.
We think it's probably third quarter when the government starts to realize that, that ultimately needs to go away, that there's enough jobs out there to fill without providing the added unemployment benefit. But yes, Florida is doing real well right now. But a lot of that hospitality is coming back in Florida. And I would say the same in Arizona, the same really in Texas too.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Yes. So the revenue in 2019 was 100 -- almost $160 million. That's what we had in revenue, and the volumes were around $20 billion of spend. And obviously, as Melissa said before, I mean, we don't know when we are going to get to the '19 levels.
What we know is what you have seen today on these six weeks where we are on the 60%, 65% down from last year. And we keep monitoring daily how things are improving. But it's hard to tell now when we are going to get back to the '19 levels.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
So on track. I don't want to say too much because it's -- obviously deal is not closed and that's for them to comment on but I would just signal that we're very happy with where things are in the process and continue to be very pleased obviously with the strategic value that they're going to bring to us, but just as we get to know the team better and their operating philosophy and culture, we're very excited about them joining the team.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Afternoon. Thanks for taking the questions. Matt, maybe just first one, you talked a lot about, obviously, the One Vanderbilt leasing has gone well 90% target. Can you remind us what the GAAP FFO contribution is for this year and how should we -- what we should anticipate for the next? I think was about $30 million this year, if I'm not wrong, but if you can give us more color on that, that'd be really helpful, given your 90% target.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Yeah. So I think the first part of that question, we saw in APAC across a couple of different countries in the theater strong activity, as well as both good concentration of transactional business, as well as a few large deals. We hadn't seen that as much in the previous quarters. In particular, as you look at India, where we have a large portion of our workforce, you know, that's been a region and country that there's been a lot of concern about, that we've had, in terms of our involvement in the community and the like.
But we saw some good traction in that in Q1 despite everything going on with new adds, as well as upgrades in terms of customers. Shifting over to the EMEA theater, it tends to still be concentrated in U.K., Nordics, Benelux area. Dock in Southern EMEA is a little bit slower still. We're seeing good activity but not necessarily back to pre levels.
Shifting over to North America, enterprise business continues to be strong, channel business also. And I believe that we've commented already in terms of the best quarter in terms of million-dollar adds over the last eight quarters. A lot of that came from North America and a couple from international.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Yeah. For the balance of this year, we think it's a $50 million range. And we're not, at the moment, seeing it any different than what we said or what we're seeing occur for the balance of this fiscal year.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Yeah. That is certainly a key part of it. Go ahead Ron.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Thanks.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Okay, thanks a lot. I think I have kind of a question about the turnaround activity for your company, kind of a two-part question. But could we get an update, I believe, in the second quarter you scheduled for one of your major pieces of equipment, sulfuric acid, to undergo its annual turnaround. And first of all, I'm just wondering if you could kind of update us on the progress there?
And then secondly, I mean kind of somewhat related, but should I assume that there won't be any interruption or any reduction in your planned shipment capability during the second quarter. In other words, I see the inventory levels coming in to the second quarter. And there's a certain amount of production you'll be able to do before you have to take equipment offline. But based on kind of your product availability, and also the timing and execution of the turnarounds, I mean, could you just give us an update on how that aspect of your overall operations is progressing through, what I consider the peak spring selling season for some of your products? Thanks.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Yeah, I think the large project that Brett alluded to will continue to build working capital probably through three quarters to the way through the year, and then at that point, will probably plateau out. And fourth quarter is probably going to be neutral. But overall, as I communicated last quarter, I think when you look at year-over-year 2020 versus 2021, we will be in a cash usage position just really due to that working capital build up to that large project.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Great question. And based on all the feedback and insight we have from our manufacturing partners, and we'll obviously get more into this on our call next quarter. But sitting here today, it looks like that we can have unit growth next year based on our manufacturing partners. There's a lot of moving pieces in that, but that's what it does look like, which is great news.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Good morning.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Alex, as we always have said, we set a leverage range target. And once we fall outside of that range, we will take action to bring ourselves back within the range. The range has been increased. We were at 1.75 to 2.25 as a range as S&P Global stand-alone. After the merger, that range will be brought up to two to 2.5 times.
As you saw in our earnings announcement this morning, we're currently at 1.8. IHS Markit is slightly higher levered than S&P Global today. So we need to see and look at the mix after we combine the debt base of both companies. But clearly, if we will fall below the lower end of the new range, we will take action. We will add additional leverage on our balance sheet to make sure that we have an optimal overall corporate financing structure. And if that means we have excess cash and excess capital going forward, that will be an opportunity to return to shareholders as well.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Thanks Joe.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
We're currently looking at '22 to be in line with our current expectations for '21.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
You're welcome.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Ryan, the midpoint of our guidance, we assume that the persistency over the year would eventually get back to prior to 2020. So what we're going to -- what we saw in the fourth quarter even in the Direct to Consumer is that the persistency wasn't quite as good as it was in the second or third quarter, but still it was better than what it had been historically. We're just -- I don't think -- we never had a pandemic like this. I don't -- we're just not sure whether or when the losses will return back to the prior historical levels. But as far as our guidance, we assume that as we get toward the end of 2021, it will be back to more what it was 2019 and prior.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Yeah, Mike, this is Scott. It's a little bit difficult to project what's going to happen in the second half of the year. We've got economies that we're open and are questioning about restricting going forward. We have economies that still have yet to be open. So it's really hard to predict what it's going to look like going forward. We're in uncharted times. I would say, based on the comments we've made, our business is up versus pre-pandemic levels, but below where we saw the peak last year.
And if you think about the peak in 2020, that basically emptied a lot of inventories throughout the production supply chain and what inventory is left in the trade at this point and in the consumers', pantries is yet to be seen. So I'd say it's really hard to predict where we are in that continuum at this point.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Yeah, it's certainly a chess piece, Charles. I think QEP has three notes outstanding, 22s, 23s and 26s. Those notes probably end up getting tendered for and refinanced in some form or fashion, lower interest rates with longer average maturity, but also putting something on the front-end of our debt stack to guarantee further debt pay down. So it's really dependent upon how many people tender the bonds, if and when that begins.
I think the paying 2025 notes is a -- is also a chess piece that goes into that, and I think we're pretty close to starting that process with the shareholder vote coming up in March 16th. So we want to take advantage of these rates with three goals. We want to pay down gross debt overall over time at our discretion, we want to lower average interest rate and we want a longer average term to maturity, and I think we're setting ourselves up to accomplish that.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
And they're all things that we're looking at I'll let Denise expand on that. Let us all things that we looked at going forward, but we've said fairly consistently that Q1, Q2 was always going to be. I-not just for us but for the whole industry in terms of how that plays through, and on the two year stack basis we're expecting a lot of our initiatives to gradually and just see an improvement in Q3, Q4 on a two year stack basis, as we start to kind of normalize the comparisons.
And as you said, we didn't get as big an upside last year, so we shouldn't get bigger, we should be able to see our Q3, Q4 two years stack just improve naturally as part of the underlying business that we have. And as I said, we're very excited about the marketing activity that we put in place the test and learn that we've done that that work will start to play pay dividends for us in Q3, Q4.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Hey, thanks. Good morning. Maybe I wanted to come back to the for-hire fleet and just wanted to kind of get a sense of maybe practically how you see that stabilizing, both from a timing perspective and maybe sort of what will be the drivers of maybe getting more drivers, I guess. When you think about sort of wages going up, is that sort of the primary tool that you think you can use?
And if you maybe need to wait for some of these extended unemployment or enhanced unemployment benefits to roll off later in the second half of the year before it becomes a little bit more easy to get those folks? I'm just trying to get a sense of sort of practically how that works because really since the market tightened up post-COVID, post the initial COVID onset. It seems like the tractor dynamic has become increasingly more challenged, challenging to add. So I just want to get a sense of how you guys are practically thinking about addressing that.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
That is correct.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Yes, I think the first half of the year, we were kind of busy in terms of realigning our test capacity to serve the other customers. And we have done so fairly successfully. As I said, as I mentioned, we have fully recovered our test business in the first half of the year ahead of our schedule. And going forward, we will continue to make -- we'll start to bring the test business back to a growth mode and we will be making the necessary investment further to further expand our test business going forward.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Thank you.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Thanks, Josh.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Sure. So -- Yes. Thanks, Helane, and I'm glad to see you're traveling again now as well. Welcome to the -- this side.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Thanks.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): UP | UP |
[INST] <<SYS>>You are a financial analyst, predicting which direction the stock price will go following this answer from the Q/A section of an earnings call. Respond with UP or DOWN<</SYS>>
Yeah. We have fielded several calls with respect to originators who would like to partner with a long-term capital partner in that space. At the end of the day, this is a market that we're watching very closely. There's times where this market is attractive and there's times when it's not.
And the concern about going long term with an originator is that you're basically forced to continue funding the supply in a case where the market is changing on and you see that with supply volumes higher, HPA flattening out. I mean at the end of the day these are contractors that are taking measures of basically a technical squeeze on supply, and we'll continue funding these loans as long as that continues to happen. But that could change quickly, and we want to be able to manage our costs as a company and our overhead with respect to not having the significant overhang if the market does change. So at the end of the day, we see this as a trade versus a business, in many cases -- in many degrees, this is, again, the supply side, listen, around two months of more housing supply in the market available to sell, it shouldn't be -- we don't expect this to continue for multiple years.
I think when you buy into a fix-and-flip originator, in particular, that's something you really need to see through, of course, the next five years, based on pricing of these originators. And at this point, we don't want to expose ourselves with that overhead cost. We like where we are right now with respect to flow purchases, we have good relationship with originators. We're great liquidity provider for them.
We have been in 2021 during the market downturn, and we will continue to do so going forward.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |