Raphael Stevens

Lululemon reported earnings and revenue beats for its fourth-quarter earnings on Thursday.
But the retailer’s 2025 guidance came in below expectations.
Revenue for the fiscal fourth quarter of 2024 totaled $3.61 billion.

Lululemon store in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., on July 15, 2024.
Beata Zawrzel | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Lululemon beat Wall Street expectations for fiscal fourth-quarter earnings and revenue, but issued 2025 guidance that disappointed analysts.
On an Thursday earnings call, CEO Calvin McDonald said the athleticwear company conducted a survey earlier this month that found that consumers are spending less due to economic and inflation concerns, resulting in lower U.S. traffic at Lululemon and industry peers. However, he said, guests responded well to innovation at the company.

“There continues to be considerable uncertainty driven by macro and geopolitical circumstances. That being said, we remain focused on what we can control,” McDonald said.
Shares of the apparel company fell more than 10% in extended trading.
Lululemon was only the latest retailer to say it expects slower sales for the rest of this year as concerns grow about a slowing economy and President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Here’s how the company did compared with what Wall Street was expecting for the quarter ended Feb. 2, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:

Earnings per share: $6.14 vs. $5.85 expected
Revenue: $3.61 billion vs. $3.57 billion expected

Fourth-quarter revenue rose from $3.21 billion during the same period in 2023. Full-year 2024 revenue came in at $10.59 billion, up from $9.62 billion in 2023.

Lululemon’s fiscal 2024 contained 53 weeks, one week longer than its fiscal 2023. Excluding the 53rd week, fourth-quarter and full-year revenue both rose 8% year over year for 2024.
Lululemon expects first-quarter revenue to total $2.34 billion to $2.36 billion, while Wall Street analysts were expecting $2.39 billion, according to LSEG. The retailer anticipates it will post full-year fiscal 2025 revenue of $11.15 billion to $11.30 billion, compared to the analyst consensus estimate of $11.31 billion.
For the first quarter, the company expects to post earnings per share in the range of $2.53 to $2.58, missing Wall Street’s expectation of $2.72, according to LSEG. Full-year earnings per share guidance came in at $14.95 to $15.15 per share, while analysts anticipated $15.31.
CFO Meghan Frank said on the Thursday earnings call that gross margin for 2025 is expected to fall 0.6 percentage points due to higher fixed costs, foreign exchange rates and U.S. tariffs on China and Mexico.
Lululemon reported a net income for the fourth quarter of $748 million, or $6.14 per share, compared with a net income of $669 million, or $5.29 per share, during the fourth quarter of 2023.
Comparable sales, which Lululemon defines as revenue from e-commerce and stores open at least 12 months, rose 3% year over year for the quarter. The comparison excludes the 53rd week of the 2024 fiscal year. Analysts expected the metric to rise 5.1%.
Comparable sales in the Americas were flat, while they grew 20% internationally. Lululemon has been facing a sales slowdown in the U.S., although McDonald said its U.S. business stabilized in the second half of the year and partially attributed the improvement to new merchandise. He added that Lululemon will expand its stores to Italy, Denmark, Belgium, Turkey and the Czech Republic this year. More

General Motors stock fell more than 6% Thursday after President Donald Trump announced new tariffs on auto imports.
The divergence from shares of other automakers stems from the amount of vehicles that GM imports, and its exposure to Mexico in particular.
Roughly 30% of GM vehicles sold in the U.S. during the first three quarters of 2024 were assembled in Canada and Mexico.

The GM logo is seen on a water tank of the General Motors assembly plant in Ramos Arizpe, in Coahuila state, Mexico, on Feb. 11, 2021.
Daniel Becerril | Reuters

As auto stocks reacted to the latest tariff announcement out of Washington, D.C., on Thursday, General Motors took the brunt of the hit.
Shares of GM fell more than 7% in Thursday trading, far underperforming the likes of Ford and Stellantis, which shed more than 3% and roughly 1%, respectively. Tesla stock was essentially unchanged for the day.

The divergence stems from the amount of vehicles that GM imports, and its exposure to Mexico in particular.

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“Tesla and Ford appear to be the most shielded given location of vehicle assembly facilities although Ford does face incremental exposure on imported engines,” Deutsche Bank analysts wrote in a note Thursday. “GM has the most exposure to Mexico.”
President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced his administration would impose 25% tariffs on “all cars that are not made in the United States” and some automobile parts. The executive order signed Wednesday allows for some leniency for components that are compliant with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, but it was not immediately clear what relief that might offer the North American automotive industry.

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General Motors stock falls after Trump tariff announcement.

Mexico accounted for 16.2% of vehicle imports into the U.S. as a percentage of sales in 2024, according to GlobalData. That was the largest share of any country, about double the shares of South Korea and Japan, which ranked second and third in terms of import volume, respectively.
Roughly 52% of GM vehicles sold in the U.S. during the first three quarters of 2024 were assembled in the U.S., according to research by Barclays analyst Dan Levy. That leaves 30% assembled in Canada and Mexico, and another 18% brought in from other countries.

Levy also pointed out that GM relies heavily on Mexico and South Korea for production of some of its small crossovers, including its Equinox and Blazer vehicles.
“Roughly half of GM’s US sales are produced in the US, but imported parts are a concern,” he said.
During the same period, 57% of Stellantis vehicles and 78% of Ford vehicles sold in the U.S. were assembled stateside. Levy reported Stellantis assembled 39% of its U.S.-sold units in Canada and Mexico, and Ford, just 21%.
Wolfe Research’s Emmanuel Rosner said the tariffs primarily affect foreign-brand automakers, but noted that 15% of GM’s U.S. vehicles come from South Korea.
John Murphy from Bank of America said in comparison to the broader automotive market, GM is “relatively exposed to the tariffs” and may need to rebalance.
GM stock is down 13% year to date. Shares fell sharply in late January after investors worried that the automaker did not address concerns about tariffs in its most recent earnings report. More

Peyton Manning’s Omaha Productions has sold an approximately 10% stake to a new platform run by former Endeavor executive Patrick Whitesell.
The stake sale will value Omaha at more than $750 million, according to people familiar with the matter.
Omaha Productions has produced more than 30 TV series and live events, including the “ManningCast” on ESPN.

Peyton Manning on Sunday, February 16, 2025.
Theo Wargo | NBCUniversal | Getty Images

Peyton Manning has a new business partner.
A new platform run by Patrick Whitesell, the former executive chairman of Endeavor, has acquired a minority stake in Manning’s Omaha Productions.

The stake, which is approximately 10% of the company, values Omaha Productions at more than $750 million, according to people familiar with the matter.
Private equity firm Silver Lake announced Whitesell’s new platform, which will invest in sports, media and entertainment companies, earlier this week. Silver Lake is contributing an initial $250 million to the fund. The Omaha Productions deal is the first investment.
A spokesperson for Whitesell and spokespeople for Omaha and Silver Lake declined to comment on financial terms.
“Omaha’s strong track record of creating engaging content puts them in a strong position to capitalize on new opportunities across entertainment and sports,” said Whitesell in a statement.

Patrick Whitesell Executive chairman of Endeavor.
Courtesy: Endeavor

Omaha Productions has produced more than 30 TV series and live events for a variety of media partners, including Disney, Netflix and Comcast’s NBCUniversal. The company is the executive producer of Netflix’s “Quarterback” and “Receiver” documentary series and developed “Monday Night Football with Peyton and Eli,” colloquially known as the ManningCast, where the Manning brothers comment on the game and interview celebrities.

Silver Lake is a longtime investor in Endeavor. This week, it closed its transaction to take the company private. When accounting for Endeavor’s existing stake in TKO Sports, Silver Lake marked the deal at an enterprise value of $25 billion.
Manning and media executive Jamie Horowitz founded Omaha in 2020. As it takes on Silver Lake as an investor, the company aims to grow into new business ventures that can utilize Manning in other ways beyond media, the company said in a statement. Omaha recently announced an investment in Good Good Golf, a golf and lifestyle company.
Omaha has been profitable since its founding, the company said, suggesting the investment is more about increasing Omaha’s value and expanding its opportunities than needing cash.
Both Silver Lake and Whitesell were instrumental in moving Endeavor beyond a talent agency into an expansive sports and entertainment empire. The company, run by Ari Emanuel, eventually acquired both UFC and WWE, merging them into a new publicly traded entity called TKO Group.
Disclosure: Comcast’s NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC. More

Critical Role has expanded from a single live-stream of Dungeons & Dragons into a multiplatform media company.
It operates a production studio, a publishing arm, a gaming division, a streaming service, a record label and a charity initiative.
While Dungeons & Dragons will remain a cornerstone of Critical Role’s identity, the company is now building its own legacy.

The cast of “Critical Role” playing Dungeons & Dragons.
Critical Role

A decade ago, a group of professional voice actors gathered around a table to live-stream a game of Dungeons & Dragons. Now, they run a media empire.
Critical Role, both the name of the original show and the company, has expanded exponentially since its first episode aired in March 2015. Today it operates a production studio, a publishing arm, a gaming division, a streaming service, a record label and a charity initiative.

The company’s growth comes at a time of disruption in the traditional media landscape. More consumers are turning to niche streamers and alternative content than ever before, with services like Critical Role’s streaming platform Beacon becoming more and more prevalent.
Critical Role is a private company and does not disclose its financials, however, a leaked Twitch report noted that the company generated $9.6 million in direct payouts from the streaming service between September 2019 and September 2021. It’s an impressive total for a company built on a 50-year-old fantasy game.
Critical Role’s business strategy centers on its intellectual property. The company and its founders — Matthew Mercer, Ashley Johnson, Laura Bailey, Liam O’Brien, Taliesin Jaffe, Marisha Ray, Sam Riegel and Travis Willingham — have crafted a complex fantasy world, named Exandria. Through partnerships and expanding in-house production, they’ve captured fans across a wide swath of mediums.
The company has created more than 2,500 hours of original content, more than 30 original shows and published nearly 70 books, comics and novels in the last 10 years, many of which are based on the IP of its games.
As the company continues to mature, it has broadened its focus beyond the confines of the Hasbro-owned table top roleplaying game.

“We’ve been doing this for quite a while,” said Mercer, the company’s long-time game master and chief creative officer. “Our core main campaign it’s very much been kind of the tentpole of our community and the growth of this whole endeavor … People throughout the company have kept eyes out in the space to look for really talented, up-and-coming people that might be an opportunity for us to collaborate with and let them grow — kind of more or less give them part of our garden and let them flourish.”

‘How do you want to do this?’

The basis for Critical Role’s content is what’s known in the D&D realm as a “campaign,” a longform game that can take place over the course of several weeks, months and even years. 
Critical Role’s third campaign, the adventures of a group known as Bell’s Hells, wrapped in early February with an 8-hour finale. The campaign, which took place over the course of 121 four- to six-hour episodes, started in October 2021.
Its final session marked the culmination of a decade of storytelling and the beginning of something new. While Critical Role will continue to deliver fan-favorite content, it’s now looking to delve into new domains.
“In the animation world alone, animation takes a long time, and it’s very expensive and feature animation is its own unique challenge, but it’s something we are exploring,” Willingham said. “We love experiential things. We’re always looking for anything that someone might be able to come and engage with in a real world aspect.”

Titmouse developed “The Legend of Vox Machina” for Amazon Prime Video based on a Dungeons & Dragons campaign from Critical Role.
Amazon Prime Video

Already, Critical Role has a successful animated series on Amazon Prime Video, “The Legend of Vox Machina.” The project was first fundraised by Critical Role’s ardent fanbase, who shelled out more than $11.3 million on Kickstarter to bring a 10-episode season to life. Amazon quickly funded a second season of the show, which is now headed for its fourth.
Still to come is a second show centered on the characters in the adventuring party known as the Mighty Nein, who featured in Critical Role’s second campaign. Both projects are being completed by independent animation house Titmouse.
The company will continue to explore the world of Exandria in new video content, called actual plays, with the “Wildemount Wildings” announced as its next adventure.
Riegel is set to take on the role of game master for the new limited series, which launches April 3. The three-episode event follows a rag-tag group of teens at a summer camp learning how to be heroes. Their guides are two famed characters from Critical Role’s Mighty Nein, Beau and Yasha, played by founders Ray and Johnson. The cast also includes Eden Riegel, Aleks Le, Brennan Lee Mulligan and Libe Barer.

Critical Role’s “Wildemount Wildlings” features Sam Riegal as the game master alongside veteran cast members Marisha Ray and Ashley Johnson. They are joined by Eden Riegel, Aleks Le, Brennan Lee Mulligan and Libe Barer.
Critical Role

Additionally, Darrington Press, the company’s publishing arm, is set to release a romance novel called “Tusk Love,” based on an in-game novel of the same name; O’Brien has penned a book of fairy tales from the Zemni Fields, a fictional area within Exandria; and Riegal wrote a self-help book from the perspective of his character, named Fresh Cut Grass.
The company’s main cast is also gearing up for a multi-city live show tour in the U.S. and Australia, with hopes to visit other countries in Europe and South America in the coming years.
Critical Role sold out Wembley Stadium in London last fall.
“That was the largest venue we had ever explored, and watching it sell out that quickly, and then just the energy from that room was massive,” Willingham said.
“It’s all a gradual acceleration, but it’s also exciting for us, because anybody that’s been to a Critical Role live show knows there’s nothing like it,” he added.

‘You can certainly try’

Critical Role’s aspirations are even further reaching.
“We’ve built such a robust world, and we have so many other stories to tell and things that we want to add to those stories, but something that we love as gamers is providing the audience a way to get their hand on the stick and have some agency in that story, manipulate it, change it, see what their own personal experience would be,” said Willingham, teasing that a video game announcement is expected within the year.
Metapigeon, Critical Role’s production studio, has also been exploring live-action and feature film development alongside its continued animation aspirations.
“The thing about Beacon was that it’s intended as a starting point,” said Willingham. “It is something we can add to … we just have to measure and explore at our own pace, but that’s fully our intention.”
The Beacon streaming service costs $5.99 a month for ad-free and exclusive content, as well as early access to live event ticket sales and a percentage off Critical Role merchandise.
The company declined to say how many subscribers its Beacon service currently has.

The cast of “Critical Role” includes Marisha Ray, Matthew Mercer, Sam Riegel, Taliesin Jaffe, Ashley Johnson, Travis Willingham, Liam O’Brien and Laura Bailey.
Critical Role

Perhaps the biggest investment Critical Role has made is in its new table top roleplaying game system called Daggerheart. This ruleset, which is due out in May, is set to be the basis of much of the company’s video content in the future.
“The intent of this was to look at all the different systems we had played and comparing that with the style of how we play,” said Mercer. “There’s a history of prominent game systems that facilitate epic, cinematic storytelling, but often are kind of in conflict with the rules as they’re written and presented.”
Mercer and the team at Critical Role wanted to build a system that allowed for more creative gameplay where rules didn’t delay or prevent players from creating unique story moments.
Critical Role will still use other game systems, like Dungeons & Dragons, but having its own proprietary module allows it to not only grow in scope of content, but also in revenue. Those funds can then be reinvested into other projects.
“The perpetual joke is, if you say it out loud, there’s a chance that it will happen,” said Willingham. More

Ferrari said Thursday it will raise prices on certain models after April 1 in response to new U.S. auto tariffs.
The sports car maker’s more popular models, including the Purosangue SUV, the 12Cilindri and the F80, will get price increases of up to 10%.
Ferrari produces all of its cars at its Maranello factory.
Last year, the company produced 13,752 cars.

The Ferrari logo is seen outside the Ferrari headquarters in Maranello, Italy.
Ciancaphoto Studio | Getty Images Sport | Getty Images

Ferrari said Thursday it will raise prices by 10% on certain models after April 1 in response to new U.S. auto tariffs, adding up to $50,000 to the price of a typical Ferrari.
The Maranello, Italy-based sports car maker said prices will remain unchanged for all cars imported before April 2. After that, the “commercial terms” for three of its model families — the Ferrari 296, SF90 and Roma — will “remain unchanged,” the company said in a release.

Yet, its more popular models, including the Purosangue SUV, the 12Cilindri and the F80, will get price increases of up to 10%.
For the Purosangue, which starts at about $430,000, that price hike amounts to about $43,000. For the limited edition F80, which starts at more than $3.5 million, the increase will add more than $350,000 to the price tag.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced tariffs of 25% on all cars not made in the U.S. Ferrari produces all of its cars at its Maranello factory.
Last year, Ferrari produced 13,752 cars. The company plans to launch its first all-electric Ferrari in October.
It is unclear what effect the tariffs will have on Ferrari sales, since there is already a waiting list of more than a year for most of its vehicles. Ferrari buyers are generally wealthy enough to easily absorb the price hikes.

Ferrari also said Thursday it “confirms its financial targets for 2025” but added that there is a “potential risk of 50 basis points on profitability percentage margins.”
In an interview with CNBC this month, Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vigna said even though Ferrari buyers are wealthy, the company has to be sensitive to passing on too much of the added cost of tariffs.
“When we look at the client, we consider that these people to buy a Ferrari, they have to work,” he said. “We have to respect them. Because for us, the most important thing is the client. So we need to make sure that we treat them in the right way.”
Shares of Ferrari were slightly higher Thursday morning, while shares of the U.S. “Big Three” automakers were largely lower.

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President Donald Trump said he would place 25% tariffs on “all cars that are not made in the United States.”
The tariffs apply to imported passenger vehicles and light trucks, as well as key automobile parts including engines and transmissions, the White House said in a fact sheet.
Vehicles are made up of tens of thousands of parts, many of which cross back and forth over the U.S. border before a final product is completed.

The border wall is shown in a background as a semi-truck carrying Toyota trucks crosses a bridge after clearing U.S. Customs while entering the United States from Mexico along the border in San Diego, California, on March 4, 2025.
Mike Blake | Reuters

Auto stocks are digesting President Donald Trump’s announcement that he would place 25% tariffs on “all cars that are not made in the United States,” as well as certain automobile parts.
Trump’s administration had been telegraphing plans to put tariffs on the auto industry, but the effect of those moves and mechanism for enforcement are starting to take shape. Trump said the tariffs would go into effect April 2.

General Motors stock was down about 7% in early trading Thursday, while Stellantis lost more than 2%. Tesla, however, was marginally higher, while Ford Motor shares hovered around the flat line.
“In our coverage, for [original equipment manufacturers], Tesla and Ford appear to be the most shielded given location of vehicle assembly facilities although Ford does face incremental exposure on imported engines,” Deutsche Bank analysts wrote in a note Thursday. “GM has the most exposure to Mexico.”
Trump said Wednesday he would not put a tariff on vehicles that are built in the U.S.
The tariffs apply to imported passenger vehicles and light trucks, as well as key automobile parts including engines and transmissions, the White House said in a fact sheet.

The United Auto Workers union cheered Trump’s announcement.

“These tariffs are a major step in the right direction for autoworkers and blue-collar communities across the country, and it is now on the automakers, from the Big Three to Volkswagen and beyond, to bring back good union jobs to the U.S.,” UAW president Shawn Fain said in a statement Wednesday.
Vehicles are made up of tens of thousands of parts, many of which cross back and forth over the U.S. border before a final product is completed.
Data and forecasting firm S&P Global Mobility reports there are on average 20,000 parts in a vehicle when it is torn down to its nuts and bolts. Parts may originate anywhere from 50 to 120 countries.
The firm also reports that 25 automakers on average produce 63,900 light-duty passenger vehicles in North America per day. A majority of those, roughly 65%, are assembled in the U.S., followed by 27% in Mexico and 8% in Canada.

Goldman Sachs analysts wrote Thursday that Trump’s 25% tariff could raise the price of imported cars by $5,000 to $15,000. If roughly 50% of parts in a U.S.-made car came from foreign sources, the tariff could raise the price of those cars by $3,000 to $8,000, they added.
President Trump had previously granted automakers a one-month tariff exemption for vehicles that comply with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement’s trade rules of origin.
— CNBC’s Michael Wayland and Michael Bloom contributed to this report.

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Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. plans 10,000 job cuts at his department.
The reductions could affect teams that respond to disease outbreaks, approve drugs and help people with their insurance coverage.
Kennedy has repeatedly criticized the department he now leads.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., US secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), during a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Monday, March 24, 2025. 
Samuel Corum | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. plans to slash 10,000 full-time employees across different departments, as he works to reshape the nation’s federal health agencies, the department said Thursday.
Those job cuts are in addition to about 10,000 employees who opted to leave HHS since President Donald Trump took office, through voluntary separation offers. Combined, they will lead to the federal health department shedding about a quarter of its workforce, shrinking it to 62,000 employees.

HHS is a $1.7 trillion agency that oversees vaccines and other medicines, scientific research, public health infrastructure, pandemic preparedness and food and tobacco products. The department also manages government-funded health care for millions of Americans – including seniors, disabled people and lower-income patients who rely on Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act’s markets.
The department will cut jobs at divisions responsible for offering insurance to the poorest Americans, approving new drugs, and responding to disease outbreaks, according to The Wall Street Journal, which earlier reported the cuts.
The major restructuring comes as the U.S. grapples with one of the worst measles outbreaks in more than two decades, and as bird flu spreads in wild birds worldwide and is causing outbreaks in poultry and U.S. dairy cows, with several recent human cases.
HHS will also drop five of its 10 regional offices, but it said essential health services won’t be affected.
“We aren’t just reducing bureaucratic sprawl. We are realigning the organization with its core mission and our new priorities in reversing the chronic disease epidemic,” Kennedy said. “This Department will do more – a lot more – at a lower cost to the taxpayer.”

The department said the cuts will save the government about $1.8 billion per year. The federal government spent roughly $6.8 trillion in fiscal 2024.
Here are the employees the Trump administration plans to cut, according to the Journal:

3,500 full-time employees from the Food and Drug Administration, or about 19% of its workforce
2,400 workers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or roughly 18% of its staff
1,200 employees from the National Institutes of Health, or about 6% of its workforce
300 workers from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or roughly 4% of its employees

Before he was confirmed, Kennedy pledged to end what he calls “corporate corruption” at federal health agencies and purge staff when he stepped into his role in the Trump administration.
He had said he would clear out “entire departments” at the FDA, saying that workers who stand in the way of approval of several controversial or dubious treatments should prepare to “pack their bags.”
Kennedy, a prominent vaccine skeptic, has made early moves that could impact immunization policy and further dampen uptake in the U.S. at a time when childhood vaccination rates are falling.
He has said he will review the childhood vaccination schedule and is reportedly preparing to remove and replace members of external committees that advise the government on vaccine approvals and other key public health decisions, among other efforts.
His so-called Make America Healthy Again platform also pledges to end the chronic disease epidemic in children and adults. Kennedy has been vocal about making nutritious food, rather than drugs, central to that goal.
This story is developing. Please check back for updates. More