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Retailers face tariff storm: Which ones are most at risk?

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Retailers are anticipating challenges stemming from President Trump's latest tariffs levied against China, Canada, and Mexico, with some sectors more vulnerable than others.

Also catch Yahoo Finance's coverage of Best Buy's (BBY) fourth quarter earnings and how the electronics retailer is reacting to Trump's tariffs.

Roth Capital Partners senior research analyst Bill Kirk joins Market Domination hosts Josh Lipton and Julie Hyman to share his perspective on the types of retailers most at risk.

"The discretionary assortment retailers that sell things from China are in a tricky spot, and even those that skew a bit heavier on produce sales," Kirk says. "So produce, particularly outside of the summer months, comes from Mexico, or it's heavier from Mexico outside of the summer. And when that happens, if tariffs are on Mexican produce, the availability and the pricing of produce would be very likely to go up."

Also catch Yahoo Finance's coverage of Target's (TGT) own earnings print and how the retailer is forecasting tariff impacts.

00:00 Brian Sozzi

Are there retailers, Bill, that are more at tariff risk than others?

00:07 Bill Smead

Uh, absolutely. Um, so it it comes down to where where you're sourcing your product from. Obviously, a kind of traditional grocery store is packaged food heavy that is sourced in the US, long lead time to make the final product even if some ingredients might be sourced from, you know, other countries. Um, so packaged food retailers are probably in the best spot. The discretionary assortment retailers that sell things from China are in a tricky spot. And even those that skew a bit heavier on produce sales. So, produce particularly outside of the summer months, uh, comes comes from Mexico or it's it's heavier in from Mexico outside of the summer. Uh, and when that happens, if if tariffs are on Mexican produce, the availability and the pricing of produce would be very likely to go up. Um, so what you want to be in this environment is kind of, in some ways, one of the more boring retailers. You want to sell a lot of packaged food, a lot of center of the store items because they're sourced sourced locally, they're sourced domestically.

02:04 Brian Sozzi

And Bill, to be clear, on things like produce or, you know, some of the discretionary items where prices are going to go up, do you expect these retailers to pass on all of the increases to their customers?

02:23 Bill Smead

Um, they are going to try to pass on the vast majority. Um, when their entire basket is inflationary. If you go back just to a couple years when food inflation was up double digits year over year, they passed that on, right? Their inputs were up double digits and you and I saw it at the stores. It was up double digits for us. So we have scenarios where their entire store has been very inflationary for input costs and they send it right through. Uh, and part of part of the reason they can is we we need this stuff, right? We're going to we're going to buy this a little bit independent of price because we have to, right? Especially on the food side. And so I would expect them to try to pass the vast majority of it of it through.

03:43 Brian Sozzi

In terms of ratings, Bill, and I'm just looking, you know, Target, you're neutral on. Walmart, you you still like. You got to buy. It's had a a great run, Bill. I mean, it's up 60% over the past year. You say stick with that one.

04:05 Bill Smead

I do. Uh, stick with that one. Um, what they are doing is part of the reason you see very few buys in the rest of my space. Uh, they are, as I kind of mentioned in the in the in the beginning, they're competing on convenience for for the first time in decades. That's a generational change. For years, their convenience was a constant, right? They couldn't really offer anything more convenient than where their physical stores were. And COVID changed that. It sent a lot of shoppers online and suddenly Walmart could deliver to folks who might have been unwilling to drive to the stores, or maybe didn't even want to go into the stores. And so now Walmart is competing on another metric, probably the second most important metric in in in this type of retail, and that's convenience. And formerly, they could only compete on value. It's just how how cheap could they be relative to peers? That was their their proposition. Now it's how cheap can they be relative to peers and how convenient can they be relative to peers? And so we think Walmart Walmart stands stands to gain gain share in this environment.

Kirk suggests that packaged food retailers, which source domestically, are better positioned to weather the storm: "What you want to be in this environment is kind of, in some ways, one of the more boring retailers."

When discussing inflationary pressures, Kirk explains that retailers will try to pass most of the increased costs on to consumers.

To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Market Domination here.

This post was written by Josh Lynch