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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>>
Yes. Dave Barney, you want to take that one, please?[/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>>
We're going to see growth across the board in public sector business, in the diversified CRE, affordable housing is still doing well even through the pandemic. So there is a -- the good thing about what we have built on the asset side is that we have seven to eight different business lines. At any given point in time have different loan origination and volume dynamics to them. And so you can -- there is -- we're well positioned in many of those verticals to continue to see similar type growth that what we have seen pre-pandemic -- in both in 2019 and 2020.
So, if you go look at the progression of 2020 public sector, it still grew by about $350 million to $400 million. That's going to continue this year. So you're going to continue to see some of those verticals that we've been growing for the past couple of years growing at the same level or more than what we've seen in 2019 and 2020.[/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, north of that. So you're right, we have said we'll do double digit unit growth in the Hibbett brand and double-digit unit growth in the City Gear brand and those are net of whatever few closures we'll have this year.[/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 again, with respect to each of our late-stage Phase 3 trials, each one of those trials is designed specifically for that indication. Each one of those trials has its own data monitoring committee. So we would continue to recommend, and we continue to believe that those trials will recruit through their -- to their conclusion. We allow very little alpha spend for the interim analysis.
And so again, notwithstanding the great news for Lunar, I wouldn't suggest that anyone trip -- change their expectations for the other trials. With respect to ovarian cancer specifically, we mentioned in the script that the first line for -- again, may move over time, but most women will ultimately fail platinum therapy or first-line therapy, and then progress. And once they progress into second line, their prognosis is very poor. Our Innovate trial, our first trial, Phase 3 trial in ovarian cancer, is focused on that population that's failed first-line therapy.[/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, thanks for the question. Yeah, we've -- we've been -- it depends by products, of course, but we've been in pretty good shape with adding capacity and throughput as we talked about earlier through our JEM initiatives. We've been very focused on operations, being able to meet demand. There have been certain constraints here and there along the way. We're not immune to all of those. But, in general, we have been offering lead times that are industry-leading where we're probably slightly better on the door side, we're extremely better on the window side. What we've been seeing with all the improvements that we put in windows, in particular, we've actually been seeing industry-leading lead times out of JELD-WEN. And that's been returning into the share gains and builders are actually moving their business toward us. So that's been very favorable.
On the door side, we've certainly been able to keep up and I kind of think the bigger constraints in the industry have been other material and builders' availability of labor to complete those starts. And certainly that will affect us some but right now we're seeing share gain in our products pretty much across the board. And like I said, the lead times due to the JEM initiatives that we've been at for several years are paying off.[/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>>
Yes. So I think the encouraging thing is that we're signing deals there further validating the rates that we charge within that market. And maybe Liren has other comments on that, but in terms of what inning we're in, I mentioned there's $4 million roughly of recurring revenue in the quarter. Now mind you, the CE business is a little bit more volatile quarter-to-quarter, but that implied $60 million annualized. That's a little more than 10% of the overall goal there. So it's still early innings. And most of the larger vendors are unlicensed at this point. So the important thing is to transition from getting the smaller deals done to get in the medium and larger deals done. That's what's really going in needle 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>>
While the market continues to grow, as you might expect, we are the leading provider of human cremation equipment in the world. We sell more equipment than anybody else by a long shot. As a result, our reach gets broader and broader, but I will tell you that outside of the United States most of the sales are made to municipalities and as those municipalities have been constrained by what's going on with COVID in and of itself, you would expect those things to come overtime. Our backlog includes a lot of product in Latin and South America, Australia and we have a lot of backlog in Europe, Eastern and Western as well. We're pretty comfortable that this is what we expect it to be a strong long-term consistent player, they continue to deliver value to -- to the business.[/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, as a matter of fact, we have been investing in this, the entire customer journey side. And so this is a good way to put that to work ahead of the ViaSat-3 launch. And so to me, this is a really good way to put our own tools in place, which we've already begun to do in a couple of those markets. Spain is one and kind of Norway is another.
So I think this is just a really good opportunity for us to get those things in place prior to the ViaSat-3 launch.[/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 to China, if memory serves anything it's roughly 30% of what we ship. Virtually everything goes offshore. We have some customers here in North America but 80% of what we make goes offshore somewhere either to Europe or to China. I think China, if I remember correctly, is roughly 30% for the absorbents.[/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. No. I mean with the TGP expansion behind us and the turnaround ongoing now, we'll have the processing capacity that we need here in the near term. So most of the capex, it's going to be increasing.
In particular, in 2022, it is going to be tied to the greenfield compression that I mentioned before. That will be a little bit associated with well connect, with the acceleration of the third rig and potentially a fourth rig, but right now, it's mainly driven from the compression capex and the well connects.[/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. No problem, Haendel, it's Bob. So from a bad debt perspective, not a lot has changed. And you kind of saw that in the reported numbers from -- sequentially from Q4 to Q1. They're relatively flat. And that's what we assumed in our guidance is that they kind of stay the same. We do not assume any kind of material level of improvement.
That's, obviously, a potential green shoot. We are very active in the process of working with our residents as it relates to some of these federal rental assistance programs. And that's particularly concentrated, as you kind of alluded to in Southern California, where we have experienced the most elevated amount of bad debt. And so that's a possibility, but is not incorporated into the numbers themselves. So for now, our best guess is just assuming that things stay the same throughout 2021.[/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 the -- again, it's individual with each individual trust and each individual trust has done a lot of different transactions similar to this, not necessarily a sale leaseback-type transaction or exact transaction, but a sale leaseback-type transaction, so this isn't foreign to them.[/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 mean -- this is Alan. I mean, all we can talk about is historically with regard to that. And we've had periods where there were downturns. And even during the COVID, I mean, we were negotiating these four companies that we bought during COVID and if there was any kind of uncertainty or whatever like we've never seen, it was probably during that, and it really did not impact the prices that they were expecting or the way that we price companies to buy them. Historically, when sellers are looking at selling and they're talking about the bright future and what could happen, what we tell them is we're -- if you want to achieve that bright future, you keep running the company and you can make that money but if we've got to go out and make it, we're not going pay you for it. And I mean, that's just brutally how we frame that.
So we generally don't see major changes in prices that we pay. That doesn't mean expectations of sellers not change. But we're very disciplined in how we value companies and being many of these companies don't have a lot of other choices and even if they did, they want to sell to someone that's going to treat their employees right, that are going to continue the kind of the culture of those companies and they fit in well with us. So we don't see a lot moving either because taxes may go up or down or the economy is looking good or it's not looking as good. It really is more a function of the fair market value, their property plant and equipment, and what kind of market that they're in that we can go in and achieve some synergies and what we can do running the business.[/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, guys. Thanks for taking my questions as well. I think my first question is on ADAS as you provided in your investor presentations, we see the number of projects by quarter here. And a number of projects come down last couple of quarters, if I caught the numbers, right from 70 down to 56 here.
Can you discuss what's going on there? Do you see this as a retrenchment in use of lidar and ADAS or is it just higher quality projects that are still around here? Could you kind of help us understand the situation there?[/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 guys, thanks for taking my question and congrats on the quarter. I guess I just wanted to talk a little bit about kind of when you think we might start to see some novel conditioning regimens for CTX001 and do you think that's something that possibly could happen relatively soon after potential commercial launch or do you think a couple of years from kind of get into a more kind of tolerable conditioning regimen? 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>>
Shar, this is John. So, I'll take that and if Steve wants to add on, I'd happy to do that as well. But I think for us the priority is around ensuring that we achieve our balance sheet metrics. We have goals of 12% to 13%. We likely will face an additional headwinds with different types of litigation. We got some things cooking in Ohio that we need to deal with and so providing balance sheet support at an efficient cost is the number one priority. With respect to the different assets, I'm not going to get into specifics, but I would tell you that we've made a tremendous amount of progress since the first quarter. We are getting more and more comfortable with a minority interest sale in one of our assets and we're fairly confident that that's the right path forward. We think we can do this in a way that limits dilution to shareholders, but can raise a significant amount of capital that would eliminate all of our current equity needs, it would achieve our priorities around the balance sheet, provide funding for additional capex opportunities, all acknowledging the fact that we have additional headwinds that we're going to face.[/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.[/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>>
A lot of good questions, and I'm not going to really answer any of them. We're sort of early. I think we feel -- and -- that the product that we've been able -- we won sort of a competitive licensing competition. It will definitely serve the market broadly, and -- but it has a lot of milestones to go through in the next three, four years before we can get it to market, and that's with everything going well. So it's in the future, but we would not have entered into it if not -- we wouldn't have felt that we would answer sort of all the demands of what a derma care product needs to be.[/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. Thanks for asking the question. Yes, as we noted with restructuring, our -- as you probably know, our sales and marketing spend has been much higher than our peers historically, and we feel like this change really sets us up to be both more competitive but also really aligned with the strategy and focusing our sellers on driving consumption versus those upfront commits. The -- I think the traction that we're seeing also in that self-service space, think of that as not just validation of the product and a very highly efficient adoption model, but also really highly efficient customer acquisition channel where those customers come in, are getting value.
They want to increase their spend. As we noted in the investor letter, we're seeing a number of customers going beyond $25,000, even $100,000 in spend and those become highly qualified and engaged customers to our sales team that engages and expands. And so the efficiency really comes by reducing and focusing that go-to-market notion on consumption. And coupled together with that product-led growth or self-service model really is the complementary benefits that we're seeing play out there.
So I think this sets us up well for FY '22. As I mentioned earlier, to begin again to grow paid accounts overall. We're going to see that expand as -- we believe, and also continue in the back half of the year, as Mark noted, to see accelerating revenue growth 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, Brent, we actually, see it being fairly stable. So, I would say that our enterprise SG&A, should be in the $90 million to $100 million per quarter sort of territory. We're a TAD above that in Q2, which can be explained by some initiatives we're undertaking. So, I think, Q2 will prove to be somewhat of a peak and we'll be more normative toward $90 million to $100 million on the SG&A side. And then the Corporate part of that, the Corporate segment, if you will, should be pretty consistently 30 ballpark per quarter on an EBIT basis, about 25 on an EBITDA basis. And there's some volatility to that for various things, particularly initiatives, but we don't see that increasing it's -- it'll steady off, if not decrease in forward quarters from what we've showed in Q2.[/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, and good morning, gentlemen. I have two or three questions as well. The first one. We've seen your free cash flow grew up by GBP300 million. We've seen your leverage come down by half a turn. We've seen operations normalizing. So what other key criterias are you looking for in order to resume the share buyback program?
And secondly, can you talk about the adoption of Lexis+? And to what extent is the improvement in new sales directly related to the rollout of Lexis+? And lastly, I think in February you suggested that you were planning on running 75% of the shows that you had at RX in 2019. Can you update us on that number? Are you still looking to run 75% of the shows or a smaller number? 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>>
Whenever we sign up a member, if you look at our 90-point whatever percent renewal rate in the U.S. and Canada, that includes some 10-year-plus members that are 93% or 94% or 95% and includes some members that have -- in the last two years that might be mid-70s to mid-80s. So you're always from year 0 to year 1 of renewal, it's going to be a lower rate. And year 1 to year 2, it's a combination of two-year members plus some new one-year members picks that renewal rate up.
So my guess is some of these new ones, again, they're going to follow that format. The other thing though is in some cases, we think we've gotten new members sometimes in markets where we don't even operate physical stores. Not a lot, but it can't hurt.[/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>>
[Speech Overlap] Private placements? Yes. Public debt underwritings? No, 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>>
Yeah. Hey, Peter. Good morning. It's difficult to predict what we'll see through the rest of the quarter.
So I'd hate to give an actual number about it. We are seeing more inflation, as I just said. We will invest in price to maintain price gaps or to widen price gaps. So we'll see what actually happen.
But I think ignoring inflation, the general merchandise sales have been wonderful, and they've been at higher rates. So there's a bit of a mix benefit there. The services business is starting to ramp back up again, and that's pretty margin-dense business as well. So we certainly got some tailwinds to think about that might offset any inflationary headwinds.
We just didn't -- we looked at the 80 basis points in Q1, knowing that roughly half of it was due to easy comparison last year, and we didn't want anybody to take that and extrapolate it through the full year. It's not our expectation that would occur again, but we do think margins will continue to be good.[/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, Doug.[/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>>
Correct. Yeah, yeah, that's an accurate summation.[/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, Todd.[/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's 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>>
Sure. I'll ask Catherine to pile on. But just to begin. I think that our guidance for advertising for digital in Q3, up mid-teens kind of shows the strength of what we're looking for in Q3. So we believe we've got a long runway or growth from an advertising perspective. But also I want to make sure that you're focusing in on some of our other digital growth, specifically related to consumer. So I'd like Catherine to make some comments about what we're seeing in our licensing area and our e-commerce area, and those investments that we've made over the last five years are really starting to pay dividends. So maybe Catherine can give some observations about advertising, but also focusing on consumers.[/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.[/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. Thank you very much, everyone, for joining us, and have a good day.[/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. What I would tell you when we look at the data, right, because we've got a lot of customers and we examine, where customers are significantly different in terms of whether it's the number of W-2s they produce, which we called out impact of that. Because they've hired less all the way throughout the year, or they're just at a lower employment level, you will find those ineffective industries, right? You find those in hospitality. You find those in retail. You find those in all the places that you would expect, and they're ultimately in many cases fighting different types of restrictions that make it very difficult for their business to operate. And so, I think we feel optimistic that as the vaccine roll out, continues to gain momentum and that businesses are allowed to open at capacity levels that was consistent with prior.
Then, we'll start to see the benefit from that, but that's largely the message. We don't usually hear from clients saying I'm waiting for something to do a whole bunch of hiring. I'm waiting for my environment to change around me and the customers to come back, and then I'm going to back that up with the hiring, I need.[/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>>
But we'll be announcing something soon and in the near 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>>
Yeah, Scott. This is Jeff. I mean I think it's just too early to tell. We don't necessarily -- when these things aren't finalized, they have a tendency to move late in the game, as we've seen in the past. And so I guess from my perspective, I would say it's just too early to tell where it's going to land. But we're comfortable, obviously, with what we have in the numbers for this 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. Hi, Jonathan. Hi, Tiffany. My first question is a two-parter on the Car Wash segment.
The first part of it is the penetration, Tiffany. I think you said 47%. I think we had 45% on the wash club last quarter. Can you talk about seasonally, is there normally an uptick from Q1 to Q2? I don't know if we have the numbers, what -- how they compare to a year ago.
And then bigger picture, can you talk about any updated thoughts on franchising, car wash or rebranding to a single banner?[/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>>
Thank you very much, Don and Jon. Best to both of you. Don, I have a question for you. Could you talk about one or two actions that you've taken in this tenure that Jon and Brian are going to be talking about two or three years from now, that will make -- be part of why the growth rate or the margin or the cash conversion looks the way it does?[/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 is obviously a niche within the context of the SBA program or the regulatory program, but that being said, we are looking, our Chief Operating Officer, Gary Taylor, his team are looking at -- with Adam, actually runs credit to roll this out to the commercial space 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>>
The answer is, I'm really not going to comment on our confidential conversations with our customers whom we cherish and we respect that confidentiality. We deal with all of these folks, we obviously have them all in our portfolio, all the way from Facebook to Apple to Amazon, et cetera. We can only tell you that this is first-hand information, they love New York and for most of these folks, New York is the second largest outpost and center. What they love about New York is, first of all, their employees love New York. There is a very, very large and, very importantly, a diverse workforce and that's very important to these clients.
So, they have their fingers on the pulse of New York, they follow the real estate in New York as closely as we do, they all have very professional real estate organizations that we are in contact with frequently, almost daily, so the answer is that I stand by my statement. They are very aggressively interested in New York, their interest in New York continues unabated. And we think that's a very exciting thing. By the way, their interest in New York is basically almost exclusively to the west side of New York.
That's where their employees want to be and that's where their culture says they want to be. So we think we're very well-positioned for that. And we think that bodes very well for the future of New York and for the future of Vornado.[/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>>
OK. Well, thank you all for your interest in SM Energy. And thank you to all our employees, particularly, for outstanding ESG performance during 2020 and through the events in 2021. Thanks again.[/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. Media will grow faster this year, based upon the forecast we've seen to date. The mix may change, it won't change our mix dramatically because for some big -- but digital has really taken over and we've crossed the threshold that that's never really going to change Phil might want to comment one or two things on that. And what was the second part of your question, I'm sorry?[/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, folks. Thanks for taking the questions. For GBM in the U.S., how are surgical volumes trending now relative to pre-COVID levels, if you have data on 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>>
Operator?[/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>>
OK. Well, I'll take the first one, Meghan. Nice speaking, Meghan. So obviously, we don't release the publishing number.
I think you can look at relative proportions of recorded music and publishing digital revenue and get a general feel. So if recorded music is, call it, five-ish times what the size of revenue of digital revenue than publishing, plus or minus ballpark that will logically lead to what the emerging streaming platforms are being publishing. What I would say is on publishing, we don't release the number, but we're just as active in developing relationships with these platforms and helping support their growth, but also being a partner and helping lead the way in helping innovative platforms get launched, find traction, and hopefully generate long-term sustainable business models and licenses with both recorded music and publishing. Steve, do you want to discuss the Facebook 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>>
Listening to the answer, sorry.[/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 think we track and kind of follow the takeoffs and landing. So I think, in time, as the takeoffs and landings jump back up to where they used to be, we expect our aftermarket to do the same.[/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, we've certainly been more active in commercial restoration and Century Fire. And I think that part of the reasoning -- certainly strategically we have very specific ideas on where we want to grow geographically and what service lines we want to focus on. But those are both markets that are consolidating. And so I think a lot of the families and small business owners are recognizing that. And so there are more opportunities I would say than some of our other lines.[/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, Robin, just to circle back -- on the books we're at the minus 16% of room nights that I gave you, when we talked earlier. In terms of bookings for next year, when we look at, in the quarter, we also -- there we're seeing that the room nights are down 30% [Phonetic] if you're, again, looking solely at what was booked in Q1. But from the group that is on the books for the moment for next year, it was the 16% room nights that I described earlier.[/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 do not. For Univision, no, there's no OTT arrangement between Univision and ourselves. It's been talked about from time to time, but we've never really hunkered down and gotten a deal done. So we do have an OTT arrangement with NBC, our Palm Springs affiliate, but that's the only one at this time.
And Fox -- sorry, Fox as well. And then the core business being down 4%, what we're seeing is that's actually been improving pretty significantly over the past several weeks. So that would have been a very different answer maybe four or five weeks ago. So vis-à-vis the industry, auto as a category for TV is still kind of pacing in the minus 7%, minus 8% range and that's our No.
two category. What's been offsetting that is the legal services category, which has really been growing nicely, close to double digits. Restaurants or -- for the first time, restaurant advertising spend with us is flat. We haven't seen that since pre-COVID.
So that's a sign of better things to come as well as the vaccine takes hold. But the minus 4%, we're not so concerned about. It's the trends that we're focused on, and the trends tell us that we may end up a little better than minus four and a quarter once the quarter is all done.[/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, Jim, I'm not giving specific guidelines for Q1, but I think what you're saying is absolutely what we typically see, right? It's strong Q4, lower Q1. We're seeing -- we'll see that more in the joint preservation business, I think, generally, than we've seen in the Mitek business just because J&J tends to -- they manage their own inventory levels throughout the year, so it may not follow a normal seasonality on the transfer products. But yeah, I think that's definitely true. Also with COVID lifting through the year, I think you're going to see the businesses continue to strengthen. We've seen a lot of demand in our joint preservation business. But as we saw at the end of Q4, and even into the beginning of Q1, procedures are just getting postponed, a place may have a COVID lockdown or people may be quarantined and then may push off the procedure for a couple of weeks. So we saw that dynamic in the latter half of Q4. We see that -- we expect to see that here in the beginning of 2021. But the demand remains very strong, and our team is very energized about the opportunity there this 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. I'll also let Scott comment, but really it's based on what we've said in the past, which is we want the flexibility to move the molecules or sell into high-end-markets using our business model. So, in the past, KEPCO marketed all of the molecules. Now, we will have our 50% of the molecules that we can market and we can move into what we think will be hopefully more attractive end markets. So, that flexibility, we believe, will give us higher returns.
And then, I think there is also some accounting changes that happen with that that Scott may want to comment on.[/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. Thanks. Good afternoon. I guess first, Ned, follow-up on the guidance. It looks like on the profit guide, there is a pretty big swing in Q2. You obviously mentioned the big step up in headcount. But curious, are there other moving parts in that number for the quarter?
And then secondly, I think maybe for Jack, bigger picture question. You talked during Analyst Day about reducing the time it takes to launch a feature from up to a year down to a few weeks and expect to have some urgency to roll out some of the new features for shopping and small business profiles, that kind of thing. So I wonder what the timeline is now? And what that might be as you get further in the year as you start to leverage the new engineering headcount? 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>>
Where did we end. Well, again, depending on whether you look at a normalized basis or not, but adjusted earnings for 2020, we're at 3.3% net income margin, normalized 3.9%, and I would tell you that the individual margins for the lines of this were generally in line with our long-term targets.[/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 and good morning, everybody. In performance services with the addition -- with the growth and additions you've made in that portfolio of businesses; I wonder if you could give us a feel about for the mix of revenue between perpetual and SaaS, and also tech-enabled services?[/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'll tell you, obviously, over the last several years, the Ag markets have been struggling, obviously, throughout the CIS. And -- but our business has continued to improve. We've -- it doesn't show up because of the Russian ruble in terms of how that performance looks. But I would tell you that we've continued to make improvements over the last three years in the business. We've introduced new product lines across the business to get even better market share in certain aspects of it. And so we feel like there's been great progress, and they are a positive contribution to Titan.[/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>>
Stephen, let's take one last question, 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>>
I just explained to you that there are investors, and we get recouped the capital.[/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>>
Total sales and marketing was higher. Media leverage was a piece of 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>>
Yeah.[/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, I think that your math is getting you to generally the right -- the right spot. And what I'd say is in terms of where we've been historically as a Company is setting very high expectations and then not delivering on those. So we wanted to purposely set a baseline that we are committed to, we're confident in delivering and as Jochen said in his remarks, finding ways to over-deliver on that -- on that guidance.
But right now, we are planning for kind of how you said it, to get back and slowly build kind of a nice growth year after year after year, a sustainable model.[/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, Marc, it's a fair question, but really, what it has to do with is a shift in the mix of the business. And at this point, the orders that we've taken in, and some of those businesses have been at more challenged pricing. So near term here, a little bit of challenge related to incremental margins within the CAPS segment, but we anticipate that improving as we move through the course of the year.[/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 think they were already in the cash statement on the balance sheet.[/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 David, Jennifer here. I'll comment a little bit about, what we're seeing right now. Mark and Tom, and it's happening across the industry, supply chain and really ramping up to keep up with the demand we see in this aftermarket has paced our ability to supply it. Just -- our teams have done a phenomenal job working closely with customer's suppliers and to minimize that impact to deliver the results that we did in the second quarter. We see that easing in many places quarter-over-quarter, so improving through the back half of the year and into 2022. Microprocessors, like others in our industry and other industries continues to be the biggest constraint. Our demands are relatively small in the broader picture of microprocessor supply. And we had expected to see some improvement in June. With COVID in Malaysia, that's delayed slightly. But that, we think, will ease in the second half of the year. So we're -- see an improvement in the second half end markets as we see the supply chains ease. From a price perspective, right now, we're anticipating our price to cost to be 30 basis points favorable for this year. And that is down from 40 basis points to 50 basis points positive in our prior guidance really because of those increased costs that we're seeing in materials, logistics and premium freight. And we are working to mitigate that with some of our contractual things on the material side, hedging and also looking at pricing and surcharges where possible and first and aftermarket. So we won't comment more on 2022 at this point, but we do expect to see some improvements both in cost coming down and getting some more recovery into the second half of the year.[/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>>
Sure. Thanks for the question, Chris. Our partnership with Tidepool has primarily been a clinical and product development one, so we've been supporting their regulatory submission and their development work. We don't have a commercial agreement at this point with Tidepool, so that's still to be worked out. I will say it's a tremendous undertaking to do that, so there still a lot of work ahead of us. But as that said, we do -- we have said that we are working under way or we have worked under way here with Omnipod 5 on the iOS platform. So I think it remains to be seen who's going to hit the market first with iOS. And we're certainly are really excited about Omnipod 5. That remains our priority at this point, and we'll continue to support Tidepool's efforts in terms of their submission and their development.[/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 first of all, I think clearly, on the commerce side, there has been significant uplift in consumers purchasing online and engaging with our platform, initially driven by the pandemic. I think for MELI, the fact that so many users were driven to our platform in the early days of the pandemic and realize that the logistics capabilities we had built out over the previous years really were incredibly efficient, both in terms of the expansiveness of free shipping, but also service levels were fantastic for us. I think had this happened two or three years earlier where our logistics build out had not been where it was, we would have had a very different capability to retain a lot of these new cohorts of users.
So I think clearly, pandemic-driven initial trial or users who had lapsed and then returned to the platform and realize that the overall user experience was dramatically different from either what they anticipated or what they had experienced in the past has been a very, very important driver of growth. And we see that also with the evolution of Net Promoter Scores and the fact that despite the huge surge in volume, our delivery times have consistently improved sequentially quarter on quarter, and the amount of free shipping has expanded. You might have realized in Q1, we lowered the threshold for free shipping in Brazil to BRL 79. So really, MELI has by far the most expansive free shipping program, I think, of online retailers in Brazil.[/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, you know we've traditionally said that we really don't think about share transactionally within a quarter. We believe that shares actually, taken from the market and quite frankly, that we believe our solution certainly provide us with that opportunity. But it has placed us in a good position to service our customers. That's what's the most important thing for us at Lincoln Electric. And we do believe that long term that positioning can allow us to be the supplier of choice for some of those customers and I like the positioning. But I'm probably not willing to say that necessarily, I believe that I can point toward a shift in share as you've presented the 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>>
Yes. So obviously, our cloud margins are lower than on-prem margins. Therefore, as cloud revenues represent bigger portion, we'll see some impact on our overall gross margin. We did not see that in 2020 because we did a lot of work on streamlining our infrastructure and improving our cloud margins.
Our long term, we will see convergence toward about 80% gross margin. But in the short term, we will see around similar levels, margins. As we continue to grow and cloud business continue to grow, only then we will see a gradual conversion toward 80%.[/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'm not sure I understood the last part of your question, Anja. What part of the environment?[/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 was just going to say, take a look at any other company that competes on customer experience, right? I mean, pricing is certainly a factor, but it's not the only factor. Many things on Amazon are much more expensive than they are in the walk-in space, but yet people choose the convenience and the actual improved user experience. So again, pricing, like in any industry, is absolutely key and important. But it's not the only factor and people will focus on what is most convenient for them at the end of the day.[/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. I just wanted to ask on the Commercial Auto reserve charge. Could you lay out -- and I was looking around, I don't think the 10-K is out yet. So, a number that would be helpful to have is kind of what the -- where the incurred net loss sits on a GAAP basis for 2020 now? But if you don't have that, then kind of what accident years the adverse development was in, so we can kind of understand how each accident years developing?[/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 for the follow-up question, Duane. So, in regards to the capital plan for 2021, we've guided $1 billion worth of capex which is mainly associated with aircraft growth. In terms of 2022, we intend to take 12 aircraft next year and that will drive approximately the same capex profile to 2021. In regards to 2023, we have a step-up in the quantity of a A220 deliveries. So you will have a slightly elevated capex profile in 2023 compared to 2021 and 2022. In regards to the investment in fleet, has it changed? The simple answer is no. The decision we've made is to simply delay the E190 retirement, which is a capital-light and balance sheet-friendly decision in order to support the ramp up of the NEA.[/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>>
There's a few ongoing deferrals, John. We tried to structure our deferrals to be paid back by year end, some tenants just need a little bit more time. All of our deferrals are being paid on time or ahead of schedule. And there are some, call it, month end payers, some of those pay subsequent to the end of the month that are still outstanding in that number. Overall, I think a better representation of collections is what you saw in 2020 is the 99.6%, and a lot of that remaining outstanding collections will be completed in due time.[/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 cloud out a little bit there and so was question, how identified teams and that we brought on new talent?[/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, 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>>
We appreciate everyone's attendance this time, and we look forward as always to seeing you in 90 days from now.[/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. Great question. In terms of the issue, it's -- think of it in terms of a staffing issue impacting capacity. If I think about our Pork business, it's been taking us about six days to do five days worth of work because turnover absenteeism. The other part of that is, in terms of the performance, is related to not having skilled people in place. And so we've not been able to give mix optimization in terms of maximizing the cut-out. All those variety meats, all those components that are highly attractive from a margin perspective. We are short staffed right now in our pork plant. We are working on things that you might would expect in terms of work schedules. We're looking at wages in all of those cases. And we are also investing in terms of automation and technology to try to alleviate these more difficult and higher turnover jobs.[/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 Michael.[/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 truth is that unfortunately we won't have the capacity for the demand that we are seeing. Practically from all regions, there is very strong, full for our battery also from North America, also in Europe and also in Australia, we are comfortable that we will have capacity to meet the numbers that Ronen mentioned earlier to -- in the answer to Phil on the potential projected revenue in the second quarter and maybe some upside to go beyond that. But like I say, I wish we had capacity for all of the demand that will probably come in a better way in 2022 when we have our own factory.[/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, Elyse, first of all, thank you for recognizing the strong performance in the first half of the year. We appreciate that. And so we're very pleased with 12.1% organic growth. Number two, again, as you know, we don't give organic growth guidance. We have historically said that we are a low- to mid-single-digit organic growth business in a steady state economy. Obviously, there are some unique dynamics that are going on right now in terms of economic expansion and rates and some other things that are helping with that. But we're executing our plan as well as we ever have.
So what I would say is this. We would just ask you to think about the economic indicators that you see out there that we can see when we looked at and/or decided to give that potential moderation in the second half of the year. So whether you look at GDP, car sales, whatever it is that you're looking at, that may give you an idea of kind of how we're thinking around in the second half of the year. But we're not going to give organic growth guidance in the second half.[/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, this is Tim. Thanks for the question. Yeah, so we -- as we mentioned, we have seen a lot of our larger personal loan customers return to the loan growth in Q4 and early Q1 of this year. And so we think that's very positive. Their originations have been increasing in recent months. And that's just the trend we continue to hear. We did benefit from the recent stimulus, the $600 payments that went out in early January. We've received some of the volume from those. We haven't heard that, that has led to any decreased originations since then.
What we do know and what's different this time around versus last spring is that our customers, our personal loan customers, are not concerned with credit issues and delinquencies like they were then. I think they're more aggressively lending now. They're focused on loan growth versus protecting delinquencies and losses. And I think that's just a different trend than we saw early on.
And so we think things are positive. We're obviously monitoring additional stimulus and depending on the timing of that and the form that ultimately takes, we'll just have to monitor what that means for originations. But like I said, because our customers are really focused on loan growth and that should be helpful this time around and not show a steep of a drop in originations if there is additional stimulus that includes direct payments.[/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. This is Steve. In some of these challenging times, I think customers do question their supply chain strategies more. And so I think the conversations we're having right now are things that customers were considering, but I think the COVID situation is pushing them to -- to move a little bit quicker. So, not a big strategic shift on -- I mean, a big strategic shift on their part, but I think the timing of COVID is just helping expedite things.[/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 this is a hard year to comment on, because there were a lot of moving pieces last year, right? So we had the first quarter where really, we were very conservative when we closed our books, because we thought, oh, productivity is about to be destroyed by COVID considerations. So we had a very easy comparable in the first quarter. By the end of the second quarter, it was clear that the productivity loss was less than we had feared and we have room in a lot of our guaranteed maximum job. So we had a really strong.
We earned $1.08 last year in the second quarter. That's a tough comparable if you're being honest. And then in the second half, how you would view that would depend on -- we had two discrete items, one in each of the last two quarters. Everybody knows that, they are in last year's press releases there, you can take them up all over the place. But we got $0.17 in the third quarter of last year when we settled R&D tax audit from the 2014 and 2015 calendar years. So that was $0.17, that's just really, really discrete. And in the fourth quarter, in part because of COVID had affected the results of some of our bigger or recent acquisitions, we had hiccups from our earn-outs where -- when it became clear we might not be paying out quite as much as we had expected and that was $0.18.
So, I know the analysts took those off. We think we have a good chance of being in the range of sort of those -- the numbers we earned last year not counting those extraordinary in some cases -- in one case non-cash item. But, obviously, really tough comparables if you add in those extraordinary pickups. Is that clear? I know there's a lot.[/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. Thanks, Kevin. For us, as it relates to our capital deployment priorities, as you know, Kevin, no change in the priorities we've talked about for quite a while now. We'll continue to prioritize investing in our base business, and you folks see us doing at this year. Kevin, as you mentioned, we're increasing capital spending to increase our production capacity. We're also increasing investments in our brands in terms of advertising, R&D and technology. So that will continue to be job one. We'll also continue to pursue strategic M&A. We want to expand our portfolio, particularly in the health and wellness space. We have a number of areas we're interested in. So we'll continue to evaluate those and look for opportunities to do that. And as you mentioned, we have a very strong balance sheet right now. We're carrying a little under $800 million in the balance sheet that is elevated.
And so as we've said, if we don't have a need for that cash, we will look for ways to get back to our shareholders. If you think about this year, I expect over the balance of the year, we're going to return about $1 billion to our shareholders, about half of that through our dividend, the other half through share repurchases. That's up pretty significantly. We were somewhere around $780 million or so of return last year. So we've stepped it up this year. And then as we develop our plans for fiscal year '22 and beyond, we'll continue to evaluate the best opportunity to invest that cash. And as I said, again, if we don't have a good use for it, we're not going to keep it on the balance sheet. We'll look for ways to get that back to focus.[/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, thank you very much for your interest and attendance today. We look forward to talking to you and hopefully delivering on the fact that we have turned positive cash flow in the second quarter in the next call. 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>>
Thanks Josh.[/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>>
You got it, Bruce.[/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, Lauren.[/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 so certainly with all the news and all the discussion lately around inflation that, that's certainly something I think that we're going to have to contend within future quarters and who knows how transitory that may be or not. But definitely something that we've kind of built into our guidance on a go-forward basis. So we obviously had announced a good deal of efficiency measures during the quarter. John kind of talked about those in his prepared comments, and really on a go-forward basis, the vast majority of those things are really in the rear view mirror. It doesn't mean that we're not going to continue to work on cost initiatives and continuing to become more efficient. I think some examples, will be things related to strategic procurement that will continue to work on. But again, the objective with the cost cutting efforts that we've gone through really is twofold. First and foremost, it's become more efficient and more profitable as a company. And then secondly it's to create room, so that we can reinvest back in the company as we've kind of talked about in the past.[/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. I don't think we saw anything in terms of mix with our customer base. It looks to hold a lot different than most first quarters. I mean manufacturing base starts to come to life a little bit after the late December and early January shutdowns. And we've got some big retail customers that kick in and do some seasonal shipping with us as they roll out spring merchandise. And I think it was a pretty balanced mix.
I mean I always think our business is 60% to 65% industrial. When you walk our docks, that's what you see on the docks. So there have been different segments that have at different rates of come back in terms of housing or auto. But in general, I think the mix is about the same.[/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. Thank you. Janine[/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, we can debate the definition of material, but it was definitely higher, definitely higher.[/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>>
Hello, Matt.[/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, Cosmos.[/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 let me take the first part of that. And I'd broadly say -- I'd split the sort of -- we've got a lot of embedded software which we also get value to, but the pieces that we called out and report on are really this network layer, the automation of the network layer. And then secondly, we've obviously got Blue Planet, which is really around the service layer. And I think what we're seeing is increased focus on automation in both of those areas, very encouraged by what we're seeing.
I think Blue Planet has tremendous amount of momentum. And as we have in the past looked at giving some long-term targets for that, obviously when COVID came, it kind of all got disrupted. But as we come out of the year, when things begin to stabilize, I would expect for us to articulate some longer term goals for Blue Planet, and we'll talk a little bit more about that as it continues to grow. It will probably exceed both orders and revenue for this year that we set. And also on the network side of things, on the automation piece, we've got a lot more applications being rolled out certainly as we turn the year, and I think that will help drive the overall gross margin and software adoption. Jim?[/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 everyone for joining us 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>>
So when you step back and look at SG&A, operating expenses, I think we did around $290 million for the full year. There's two or three major buckets there, Rick. One, there was a $15 million cost save associated with just performance-related comp, that comes back. There's really not much control over that coming back, that resets. There's $15 million of discretionary cost saves, which don't come back until we start to travel, until we start to see business conditions improve. And so that's something we're definitely keeping a tight rein on.
And then there's the restructuring that I talked about, the $15 million. Now that $15 million is not all SG&A. Some of that $15 million is associated with footprint rationalization. Some of it's related to affiliate closures. And then some of it is more traditional headcount and SG&A related. And so, we're looking to really offset that $15 million that comes back immediately, if that makes sense to 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>>
Yeah. I think that's a fair statement. I mean, we're sitting here in early March, and it's definitely positive where that business is going. We've always believed in the core strength that ITM has in the marketplace. They've build great high quality products with a strong brand. We've been expanding their aftermarket presence through a number of efforts over the last few years.
And so Steve, to really answer that question, I think the cards are moving in a positive direction for what ITM is capable of doing in a good market and we're in a good position to sit back now and really reap those benefits. So really no thoughts at all right now of how we would position in the marketplace like we have in the past of seeing if there is any potential interest. It's a good quality business, it's a core business for us. And again it is moments like this where you really see the value of ITM, or how quickly when the market is starting to turn, how quickly they can go and grab that share of the market and really turn it into the sales quite rapidly.
So now looking forward to a really good year out of undercarriage.[/INST]
Direction (UP or DOWN): DOWN | DOWN |