Raphael Stevens

American, Delta, United, Frontier, and Spirit together brought in $12.4 billion from seating fees between 2018 and 2023, a Senate panel report found.
Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has called executives from those airlines to testify before the panel next week.
The Biden administration has vowed greater scrutiny of what it considers “junk fees” from airlines, hotels and other companies.

A Delta Air Lines cabin.
Leslie Josephs/CNBC

A Senate subcommittee on Tuesday slammed U.S. airlines large and small over fees to pick seats on flights.
Between 2018 and 2023 American, Delta, United, Spirit and Frontier brought in $12.4 billion in seating fees, including for seats with extra legroom as well as those in “preferred” locations that are closer to the front of the plane, or window or aisle seats, said the report from the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

Last year, United’s revenue from seating fees totaled $1.3 billion, the first time since at least 2018 that category surpassed checked bag-fee revenue, the report said.
While most major U.S. airlines have gotten rid of ticket change fees for standard economy tickets, they have added fees to select more popular or roomier seats on board. Carriers have also been racing to add more premium seats on board to increase revenue.

Stamping out so-called junk fees has been a priority for the Biden administration. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., the subcommittee’s chair, said airline executives have been called to testify about the practice at a Dec. 4 hearing called “The Sky’s the Limit—New Revelations About Airline Fees.”
Airlines for America, a trade group that represents the largest U.S. carriers, said air travel has become more affordable and that customers can choose what they want to pay for onboard.

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“The report demonstrates a clear failure by the subcommittee to understand the value the highly competitive U.S. airline industry brings to customers and employees. Rather, the report serves as just another holiday travel talking point,” the group said.

The report also criticized budget airlines Spirit and Frontier, saying they paid gate agents $26 million between 2022 and 2023 to “catch passengers allegedly not following airline bag policies, often forcing those passengers to pay a bag fee or miss their flight.”
Spirit said in a statement that it is “transparent about our products and pricing, our airport policies ensure Guests are treated fairly and equally, and we comply with all tax laws and regulations.”
Frontier said that the commissions for gate agents are “simply designed to incentivize our team members to ensure compliance with bag size requirements so that all customers are treated equally and fairly, including the majority who comply with the rules.”

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Dick’s Sporting Goods posted better-than-expected sales and earnings, leading it to raise its full-year guidance.
The sporting goods giant previously issued cautious guidance ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
Dick’s touted a better-than-expected back-to-school shopping season.

The Dick’s Sporting Goods logo is displayed on the floor of a store on September 04, 2024 in Daly City, California. 
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

Dick’s Sporting Goods raised its full-year guidance on Tuesday after what CEO Lauren Hobart called an “excellent” back-to-school shopping season and better-than-expected comparable sales for its third quarter. 
The sporting goods giant is now expecting fiscal 2024 same-store sales to grow between 3.6% and 4.2%, up from a previous range of 2.5% to 3.5%. That’s ahead of the 3.4% growth that Wall Street analysts had expected, according to StreetAccount. 

Dick’s beat expectations on the top and bottom lines, and its rosy guidance indicates its planning for a strong holiday shopping season after issuing cautious guidance earlier this year ahead of the 2024 election.
The company’s shares were up more than 8% in premarket trading Tuesday.
Here’s how the retailer did in its fiscal third quarter compared with what Wall Street was anticipating, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:

Earnings per share: $2.75 adjusted vs. $2.68 expected
Revenue: $3.06 billion vs. $3.03 billion expected

Dick’s reported net income for the three-month period that ended Nov. 2 of $228 million, or $2.75 per share, compared with $201 million, or $2.39 per share, a year earlier. 
Sales rose to $3.06 billion, up slightly from $3.04 billion a year earlier.

“We are very proud of our Q3 results and our performance year-to-date. Our third quarter comp sales grew 4.2%, driven by a continued focus on our strategic pillars and great execution from our team,” Hobart said in a news release. “As a result of our strong performance in the quarter and the continued confidence we have in our business, we are again raising our full year outlook. We believe our differentiated product, quality service and powerful omni-channel experience will resonate well with our athletes this holiday season.”
During the quarter, robust back-to-school shopping led to comparable sales growth of 4.2%, well ahead of the 2.7% growth that StreetAccount had expected. Some of Dick’s fellow retailers in the last week said unseasonably warm weather and storms in the Southeast impacted sales during the quarter, but it doesn’t appear as if the sporting goods company faced the same issues.
Dick’s said the strong quarter led it to also raise its full-year sales and earnings guidance.
The company is now expecting fiscal 2024 sales to be between $13.2 billion and $13.3 billion, in line with estimates of $13.26 billion, according to LSEG, and ahead of a previous range of between $13.1 billion and $13.2 billion.
It’s now expecting full-year earnings per share to be between $13.65 and $13.95, ahead of previous guidance of $13.55 to $13.90. It wasn’t immediately clear if that guidance was comparable to estimates. 

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Best Buy on Tuesday cut its full-year sales forecast.
The retailer missed Wall Street’s quarterly revenue expectations.
It expects full-year comparable sales to decline by between 2.5% and 3.5%, compared to its prior expectations of a 1.5% to 3% drop

A Best Buy store in Woodbridge, Virginia, on May 21, 2024.
Nathan Howard | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Best Buy on Tuesday cut its full-year sales forecast as it missed Wall Street’s quarterly revenue expectations and a fresh batch of iPhones and AI-enabled laptops weren’t enough to drive higher sales.
The consumer electronics retailer said it now expects full-year revenue to range from $41.1 billion to $41.5 billion, compared to prior guidance of $41.3 billion to $41.9 billion. It expects full-year comparable sales to decline by between 2.5% and 3.5%, compared to its prior expectations of a 1.5% to 3% drop. Comparable sales includes sales online and at stores open for at least 14 months.

Shares of Best Buy were down about 3% in premarket trading Tuesday.
In the company’s earnings release, CEO Corie Barry said it saw “softer-than-expected demand.” She pinned that on “a combination of the ongoing macro uncertainty, customers waiting for deals and sales events, and distraction during the run-up to the election, particularly in non-essential categories.”
But, she added, in the first weeks of the current quarter, consumer demand has picked up again as holiday sales gain momentum and election concerns ease.
“We continue to see a consumer who is seeking value and sales events, and one who is also willing to spend on high price-point products when they need to or when there is new, compelling technology,” she said in the release. “Thus, we are balancing our optimism in both the industry and our unique positioning with a pragmatic approach to likely uneven customer behavior going forward.”
Here’s what the retailer reported for its fiscal third quarter, compared with what Wall Street expected, according to a survey of analysts by LSEG:

Earnings per share: $1.26 adjusted vs. $1.29 expected
Revenue: $9.45 billion vs. $9.63 billion expected

In the three-month period that ended Nov. 2, Best Buy’s net income rose to $273 million, or $1.26 per share, from $263 million, or $1.21 per share, a year earlier.
Net sales fell to $9.45 billion from $9.76 billion in the year-ago quarter.
Best Buy is waiting for a wave of shoppers to replace old devices and upgrade to new, higher-tech ones after an approximately two-year sales slump in the consumer electronics category. A mix of factors have dragged down the retailer’s sales, including the spike in purchases of items like laptops, home theater systems and kitchen appliances during the Covid pandemic; the pullback in discretionary purchases as Americans spent more on food and other necessities due to inflation; and the shift back to spending on services, including travel and dining out.
Over the past few quarters, CEO Barry and CFO Matt Bilunas have said they anticipate this year to be one that brings “increasing industry stabilization.” Barry has also spoken about Best Buy’s anticipation that new gadgets, including Apple’s fresh collection of iPads as well as artificial intelligence-enabled laptops from Microsoft, will drive sales.
Yet the debut of those devices wasn’t enough to meaningfully lift Best Buy’s quarter. Comparable sales declined by 2.9% across the business and by 2.8% in the U.S.
Best Buy said weakness in sales of appliances, home theaters and gaming contributed to the comparable sales decline, but was offset in part by growth of computing, tablets and sales in the services category. The company offers services, such as installing tech in customers’ homes.
Digital sales were also soft, decreasing 1% year over year in the U.S.
As of Monday’s close, shares of Best Buy are up about 19% so far this year. That’s less than the S&P 500’s approximately 26% gains during the same period. Best Buy closed on Monday at $93.03, bringing its market value to $19.98 billion.
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Abercrombie & Fitch raised its full-year guidance and said it is expecting a strong holiday shopping season.
The apparel company, which also runs Hollister, had struck a cautious tone earlier this year, but now expects to end its fiscal year on a high note.
During the quarter, Abercrombie’s former CEO Mike Jeffries was arrested for sex trafficking, but the scandal didn’t appear to affect sales.

An Abercrombie & Fitch store stands in midtown Manhattan on October 24, 2024 in New York City. 
Spencer Platt | Getty Images

Abercrombie & Fitch isn’t giving up its crown any time soon. 
The apparel company issued strong holiday guidance on Tuesday after posting its sixth straight quarter of double-digit sales growth and another quarter of results that topped expectations. The recent arrest of the company’s former CEO Mike Jeffries for sex trafficking did not appear to affect results.

Here’s how Abercrombie did in its third fiscal quarter compared with what Wall Street was anticipating, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:

Earnings per share: $2.50 vs. $2.39 expected
Revenue: $1.21 billion vs. $1.19 billion expected

The company’s reported net income for the three-month period that ended Nov. 2 was $131.98 million, or $2.50 per share, compared with $96.2 million, or $1.83 per share, a year earlier. 
Sales rose to $1.21 billion, up around 14% from $1.06 billion a year earlier. 
For the all-important holiday shopping quarter, Abercrombie is expecting sales growth of 5% to 7%, ahead of the 4.8% growth that analysts had expected, according to LSEG. For the full year, the company is expecting sales to rise between 14% and 15%, higher than the 12% to 13% range it previously anticipated. That new outlook is higher than the 12.1% growth analysts had expected, according to LSEG. 
Despite the better than expected guidance, Abercrombie shares dropped about 3% in premarket trading.

In a news release, CEO Fran Horowitz struck a positive note, leaving out the concerns she’d mentioned in the previous quarter about the “increasingly uncertain environment.” 
“With broad-based growth across regions and brands, we continue to execute at a high level, leveraging our regional playbooks and operating model. Each of our regions grew double-digits in the quarter, with the Americas growing 14%, EMEA growing 15% and APAC growing 32%,” said Horowitz.
The Abercrombie and Hollister brands posted comparable sales growth of 11% and 21%, respectively. Horowitz noted the strong performances lapped growth of 26% for Abercrombie and 7% for Hollister last year.
Under Horowitz’s direction, Abercrombie has become one of the retail industry’s biggest winners. As it laps the strong performance it posted last year, it’s continuing to build on those numbers.
To keep gaining momentum, Horowitz is looking to international markets for growth. Abercrombie has also gone into new categories, such as its wedding collection and recent partnership with the NFL. It’s also focused on developing its Hollister chain, which caters to Gen Z shoppers, and ensuring the brand is differentiated from Abercrombie, which caters to millennials. 
During the quarter, sales at Hollister were up 14%, accounting for nearly half of all revenue. 
As retailers gear up for Black Friday and the duration of the holiday shopping season, it appears as if some of the dim sentiment clouding the back half of the year has evaporated after President-elect Donald Trump’s victory. 
For example, Abercrombie and Dick’s Sporting Goods – which both reported earnings on Tuesday – struck cautious tones when reporting earnings over the summer, but that sentiment was replaced with bullishness now that the election is over. 
Consumer sentiment has improved since Trump’s election and analysts are hopeful that certainty in the election results – regardless of who won – will be a boon for spending. More

Amgen said its experimental weight loss injection helped patients lose up to 20% of their weight on average after a year in a critical mid-stage trial.
The company said it did not observe a plateau, which indicates the potential for further weight loss beyond 52 weeks.
The data shed light on how MariTide may measure up to blockbuster weight loss injections from Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly and a crowded field of treatments being developed by other drugmakers.

The Amgen logo is displayed outside Amgen headquarters in Thousand Oaks, California, on May 17, 2023.
Mario Tama | Getty Images

Amgen on Tuesday said its experimental weight loss injection helped patients with obesity lose up to 20% of their weight on average after a year in a critical mid-stage trial, as the company races to join the booming obesity drug market. 
The drug, MariTide, also helped patients with obesity and Type 2 diabetes lose up to 17% of their weight after a year. The company said it did not observe a plateau in either group of patients, which indicates the potential for further weight loss beyond 52 weeks. MariTide was taken monthly or even less frequently in the trial — which could offer an advantage over the popular weekly injections on the market.

But shares of Amgen fell roughly 7% in premarket trading Tuesday, as the results appear to be at the lower end of Wall Street’s lofty expectations for the drug. Ahead of the data, several analysts said they wanted MariTide to show weight loss of at least 20% in the phase two trial, with some hoping for up to 25%. 
Wall Street has been eagerly awaiting the trial results, which shed light on how Amgen’s drug may measure up to blockbuster weight loss injections from Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly and a crowded field of treatments being developed by other drugmakers.
Amgen only released data on the first of two year-long parts of the trial, which was designed to test different dose sizes, schedules and regimens of MariTide. The trial’s main goal was to measure the amount of weight loss, but it also examined how long participants could go between injections and still shed pounds.
Roughly 11% of patients discontinued treatment because of any adverse side effects, while less than 8% stopped specifically due to gastrointestinal side effects.
The company will use the results of the first part “to put the fine details” on the design of its late-stage study on the treatment, which is “already deep into planning,” Amgen Chief Scientific Officer Jay Bradner said in an interview earlier this month. 

Amgen has said MariTide could offer quicker weight loss, possibly better weight maintenance and fewer shots than weekly injections such as Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s Zepbound. That could boost Amgen’s odds of winning a slice of the weight loss drug market, which some analysts forecast could be worth $150 billion a year by the early 2030s.
Late-stage studies on Wegovy showed that it led to 15% weight loss over 68 weeks, while Zepbound helped patients lose more than 22% of their weight over 72 weeks. 
MariTide brings a new approach to weight loss compared to the existing drugs on the market because it is a so-called peptide antibody conjugate, which refers to a monoclonal antibody linked to two peptides. The peptides activate receptors of a gut hormone called GLP-1, while the antibody blocks receptors of another hormone called GIP hormone. 
That’s unlike Eli Lilly’s obesity drug, Zepbound, which activates both GIP and GLP-1. Wegovy activates GLP-1 but does not target GIP, which may also affect how the body breaks down sugar and fat.
Shares of Amgen have soared this year in anticipation of the mid-stage trial data. That rally lost steam in recent weeks as one analyst raised questions about MariTide’s potential side effects related to bone density. Amgen has said it has no concerns about MariTide’s bone density data.

Trial design, data

The first part of the phase two trial followed 592 patients, including 465 patients with obesity and 127 with both obesity and Type 2 diabetes. The trial examined MariTide across 11 different patient groups, where researchers tested a variety of regimens and dosing levels – 140, 280 and 420 milligrams. 
For example, some groups used a quick dose escalation, which refers to starting patients at a lower dose of MariTide and gradually increasing it over four weeks until they reached a higher target dose. Others had a slower dose escalation over 12 weeks. 
Several groups took MariTide once a month, while one group took the highest dose of the drug every other month. Bradner noted that Type 2 diabetes patients are “known to respond less favorably to weight loss medicines,” so Amgen did not put them in any groups that used dose escalation or less frequent dosing regimens. 
Amgen invited patients to participate in the second part of the trial, which examines how durable MariTide’s weight loss is. The company is “interested to see how quickly people who lost weight rebound when they come off the medicine,” Bradner said. 
The second part of the trial also evaluates any progressive weight loss after the initial year on MariTide and tests even less frequent dosing of the drug. Amgen has not said when it will release data from the second part of the trial.
Patients who continued the trial were randomly sorted into several groups. 
For example, patients who took 140-milligram doses of MariTide in the first part of the trial will either continue taking that dose or switch to a placebo for another year, which will measure how long-lasting MariTide’s weight loss is. Some people who took 280-milligram doses in the first part of the trial will take lower doses of the drug for a year. 
Amgen is also testing a quarterly schedule among some patients who took 420-milligram doses in the first part of the trial. That means patients will get a shot once every 12 weeks.  More