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Shares of Under Armour plunged about 12% after the retailer announced that CEO Stephanie Linnartz would be stepping down after barely a year on the job.
Following the announcement, both Williams Trading and Evercore ISI downgraded Under Armour and lowered their price targets.
Some analysts say Under Armour’s problems are unique but the company is also contending with larger pressures the whole retail industry is facing.

The interior of an Under Armour store is seen on November 03, 2021 in Houston, Texas.
Brandon Bell | Getty Images

Wall Street is not pleased that Under Armour founder Kevin Plank is returning as its CEO. 
Shares of the athletic apparel company plunged about 12% on Thursday after the retailer announced late Wednesday that CEO Stephanie Linnartz would be stepping down after barely a year on the job and Plank would replace her on April 1. 

Following the announcement, both Williams Trading and Evercore ISI downgraded Under Armour and lowered their price targets. Williams Trading rated it a hold from buy and lowered its price target from $11 to $8, while Evercore downgraded the company to underperform from in line and lowered its price target from $8 to $7. 
Linnartz, a former Marriott International executive who took the helm last February, is the second CEO the company has cycled through in less than two years. 
Former Aldo Group CEO Patrik Frisk replaced Plank as Under Armour’s chief executive in January 2020 only to suddenly announce plans to resign a little over two years later, in May 2022. 
That December, Under Armour announced plans to hire Linnartz on a bet that her experience building out Marriott’s renowned Bonvoy loyalty program and driving digital revenue for the hotel giant would offset her lack of experience in the retail industry. 
Since she started at Under Armour, Linnartz had been focused on rehauling the company’s C-suite, building out its loyalty program, UA Rewards, and pivoting the brand’s assortment to a more athleisure-focused offering that had more stylish options for women. 

In its downgrade, Evercore ISI said Plank’s return to the company was a “clear signal” that the strategy wasn’t working and its key performance indicators were continuing to deteriorate in the current quarter. 
“We think the most likely scenario Mr. Plank will pursue will include efforts to accelerate a return to N. America revenue growth … which we think will add significant risk to the brand longer-term,” analyst Michael Binetti wrote. 
Sales at Under Armour slowed during the holiday quarter as the company grappled with soft demand in North America and sluggish wholesale orders. However, these dynamics also have affected rivals and are emblematic of larger forces that are pressuring the retail industry. 
In the face of persistent inflation, high interest rates and dwindling savings accounts, consumers in North America have been more choosy with their discretionary dollars and have been pulling back on buying new clothes and shoes in favor of spending on dining out and traveling.
On the other hand, wholesalers have kept tight order books as of late after they were crushed with high inventories that they accumulated during pandemic-era supply chain snarls. Now that inventory levels have largely normalized throughout the industry, wholesalers have been careful with their orders as they look to maintain those levels while contending with an uncertain demand picture. 
Analysts from William Blair agreed that Plank will be focused on driving revenue growth at Under Armour, which challenges the firm’s thesis that fiscal 2025 will be a year of cost efficiencies. 
“Moreover, with about two-thirds of leadership new to Under Armour in the past year, the departure of Linnartz poses some risk that Under Armour could undergo more changes in key roles, which could push out our hope for rebounding domestic revenue growth in fiscal 2026 given inherent product lead times if key leadership changes,” the note read. “That said, Plank has been heavily involved over the past year as brand chief and executive chair, which bolsters our optimism somewhat that key hires will remain in place.” 
Retail analyst and GlobalData managing director Neil Saunders said Linnartz’s imminent departure is “emblematic of a brand that can’t quite decide which direction it wants to go in.” 
“Under Armour has already been through several rounds of change as it tries to address declining sales and issues with the brand but, as the latest set of poor quarterly results show, it has not yet found a successful path to rebuilding the business,” Saunders said in an emailed note. 
“All of the twists and turns have created a brand that has become increasingly confusing to consumers and to wholesale partners,” Saunders continued. “This in turn, has made Under Armour easier to overlook. Remedying these problems are not simple, no matter who occupies the CEO seat.”  More

Charitable donations are becoming hyper-concentrated among a small group of ultra-wealthy mega-donors.
About 400,000 people account for more than one-third of the world’s charity, according to a new report from Altrata.
That means wealth advisors and nonprofits have to adapt to a highly top-heavy landscape for philanthropy, with fewer donors but bigger contributions on the line.

Bill and Melinda Gates brace the rain as they visit the township of Khayelitsha on October 25, 2019 in Cape Town, South Africa.
Brenton Geach | Gallo Images | Getty Images

A version of this article first appeared in CNBC’s Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide to the high-net-worth investor and consumer. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox.
While donations to charity have been rising, the pool of donors is shrinking, as philanthropy becomes hyper-concentrated among a small group of ultra-wealthy mega-donors, according to a new study.

A new report from Altrata finds that ultra-high-net-worth individuals (those worth $30 million or more) now account for 38% of all individual giving in the world. Put another way, 400,000 people account for more than one-third of the world’s charity.
It’s even more extreme when you look at billionaires. The world’s 3,200 billionaires (or 0.00004% of the global population) account for 8% of individual philanthropy.

The giving by those at the top is, of course, a positive. While it’s worthy to debate whether the wealthy are giving enough (see the recent annual letter from Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman on how the wealthy need to step it up), giving on the whole continues to grow.
The overall level of giving from ultra-high-net-worth individuals in 2022 was 25% higher than it was in 2018, even though it was a down year for financial markets, according to Altrata. North Americans remain the most philanthropic on the planet, accounting for nearly half of global giving from that upper echelon.
The challenge for wealth advisors and nonprofits is adapting to a new, highly top-heavy landscape for philanthropy. Nonprofits, which for years benefited from a broad range of donors, now have to depend on a smaller collection of super-donors, who are already barraged with requests. Charitable causes will rise and fall depending on the interests and goals of a small group of mega-funders. And overall giving will become more volatile, since the benevolence of billionaires and the ultra-wealthy is driven in large part by stock prices.

Amir Pasic, dean of the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, says the so-called “dollars up, donors down” phenomenon has caused nonprofits to rethink their fundraising and strategies.
“A lot of nonprofits are pivoting to focus more on those major gifts and trying to figure out how to access wealthy donors and foundations,” he said.
At the same time, he said, some nonprofits are trying to turn the tide of wealth and use technology and more creative outreach programs to tap a larger community of smaller, younger donors.
“It’s a Catch-22,” he said. “Everybody is rushing to the top of the pyramid, but it’s becoming so concentrated they may be neglecting the importance of reaching out to tomorrow’s donors.”
According to Altrata, today’s ultra-wealthy mega-donors are largely male, with a majority over the age of 70 and with a higher share of liquid wealth (i.e., cash) than the broader ultra-high-net worth population. Women, however, are a rising force. While women make up11% of the ultra-high-net-worth population, they account for 22% of the larger givers, according to the study.
Today’s ultra-wealthy donors also prefer to give through private foundations and donor-advised funds — which give them more control — rather than simply writing checks to the Red Cross or United Way. The assets held in private foundations have more than doubled since 2005, to more than $1.2 trillion, according to Federal Reserve data.
Almost 1 in 5 of all ultra-high-net-worth individuals has a private foundation, and 30% of those worth $100 million or more have a foundation, according to Altrata.
The giving priorities of the wealthy are also different from those of the broader public, which could lead to more money flowing to causes that are particular to the wealthy or even a subset of a few individuals. The top charitable cause for ultra-wealthy donors was education (at 54%), according to Altrata. That was followed by arts and culture (32%), health care and medical research (28%), social services (23%) and the environment/conservation/animals (14%).
While religion is far and away the top charitable cause for Americans, Altrata said religion didn’t rank in the top seven causes for the ultra-wealthy, though Altrata noted that because giving to religion is often “anonymous and disparate in nature,” the real number may actually be higher.
“There is some evidence that the ultra-high-net-worth population has different skews from the broader population,” Pasic said. “And that can also be skewed by a small number of very large gifts to one cause.”
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SpaceX is set to attempt a third test flight of its Starship rocket on Thursday.
Elon Musk’s company has a nearly two-hour window, from 8 a.m. ET to 9:50 a.m. ET, in which to launch Starship from its Starbase facility near Boca Chica, Texas.
The company said in an update Thursday morning the weather was “70% favorable” for launch. It was most recently targeting 9:25 a.m. ET for liftoff.

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SpaceX is set to attempt a third test flight of its Starship rocket on Thursday, as the company looks to push development of the mammoth vehicle past new milestones.

Elon Musk’s company has a nearly two-hour window, from 8 a.m. ET to 9:50 a.m. ET, in which to launch Starship from its Starbase facility near Boca Chica, Texas. If SpaceX is unable to launch within that window for weather or technical reasons, the company will postpone the attempt to a later date.
The company said in an update Thursday morning the weather was “70% favorable” for launch. It was most recently targeting 9:25 a.m. ET for liftoff.
SpaceX has flown the full Starship rocket system on two tests in the past year, with launches in April and November. Both previous launches had progressive but explosive results: While each of the rockets flew for a few minutes, with the most recent reaching space, both vehicles were ultimately destroyed due to problems.

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The Federal Aviation Administration on Wednesday cleared SpaceX for a third launch attempt.
Assuming the launch goes according to plan, Starship would reach space and then travel halfway around the Earth before reentering the atmosphere and splashing down in the Indian Ocean.

The Starship system is designed to be fully reusable and aims to become a new method of flying cargo and people beyond Earth. The rocket is also critical to NASA’s plan to return astronauts to the moon. SpaceX won a multibillion-dollar contract from the agency to use Starship as a crewed lunar lander as part of NASA’s Artemis moon program.
SpaceX heavily emphasizes an approach of building “on what we’ve learned from previous flights” in its approach to develop Starship. The company says its strategy focuses on “recursive improvement” to the rocket, where even test flights with fiery outcomes represent progress toward its goal of a fully reusable rocket that can deliver people to the moon and Mars.
Musk last year said he expected the company to spend about $2 billion on Starship development in 2023.

Starship’s staggering size

SpaceX’s next-generation Starship spacecraft atop its powerful Super Heavy rocket is launched from the company’s Boca Chica launchpad on an uncrewed test flight, near Brownsville, Texas, on Nov. 18, 2023.
Joe Skipper | Reuters

Starship is both the tallest and most powerful rocket ever launched. Fully stacked on the Super Heavy booster, Starship stands 397 feet tall and is about 30 feet in diameter.
The Super Heavy booster, which stands 232 feet tall, is what begins the rocket’s journey to space. At its base are 33 Raptor engines, which together produce 16.7 million pounds of thrust – about double the 8.8 million pounds of thrust of NASA’s Space Launch System rocket, which launched for the first time late last year.
Starship itself, at 165 feet tall, has six Raptor engines – three for use while in the Earth’s atmosphere and three for operating in the vacuum of space.

The rocket is powered by liquid oxygen and liquid methane. The full system requires more than 10 million pounds of propellant for launch.

Goals for third flight

There will be no people on board this attempt to reach space with Starship. The company’s leadership has previously emphasized that SpaceX expects to fly hundreds of Starship missions before the rocket launches with any crew.
SpaceX will be looking to surpass the nearly eight-minute flight of the second launch and complete further milestones. SpaceX and the FAA conducted an investigation into the November launch’s problems, and the company as a result made changes to the monster rocket before the third attempt.
The company outlined several new capabilities that it aims to demonstrate on this flight. Those include opening and closing the door of the spacecraft once in space – which would be how the rocket deploys payloads such as a satellites on future missions – and transferring fuel during the flight in a NASA demonstration, as well as relighting Starship’s engines while in space. More

Holiday sales and earnings at Dick’s Sporting Goods came in well ahead of Wall Street’s expectations.
The athletic goods retailer, known for its wide array of premium sports products, raised its quarterly dividend by 10%.
Dick’s said its fiscal fourth quarter was the largest sales quarter in its history.

Dick’s Sporting Goods logo is seen on the shop in Williston, United States on June 19, 2023. 
Jakub Porzycki | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Dick’s Sporting Goods raised its dividend by 10% on Thursday as the company posted its largest sales quarter in its history and projected another year of growth.
Many retailers benefited from a 53rd week in fiscal 2023, but Dick’s said it still broke records during its fiscal fourth quarter even without those extra days.

Here’s how the athletic apparel retailer did compared with what Wall Street was anticipating, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG, formerly known as Refinitiv:

Earnings per share: $3.85 adjusted vs. $3.35 expected
Revenue: $3.88 billion vs. $3.80 billion expected

The company’s reported net income for the three-month period that ended Feb. 3 was $296 million, or $3.57 per share, compared with $236 million, or $2.60 a share, a year earlier. Excluding one-time items related to impairment charges and inventory write-offs, Dick’s reported earnings per share of $3.85. 
Sales rose to $3.88 billion, up about 8% from $3.60 billion a year earlier.
 “With our industry-leading assortment and strong execution, we capped off the year with an incredibly strong fourth quarter and holiday season,” CEO Lauren Hobart said in a statement. 
“We are guiding to another strong year in 2024. We plan to grow both our sales and earnings through positive comps, higher merchandise margin and productivity gains,” she added.

During the quarter, same-store sales rose 2.8%, well ahead of the 0.8% lift that analysts had expected, according to StreetAccount. “Growth in transactions” and market share gains drove the increase, said Executive Chairman Ed Stack. 
For fiscal 2024, Dick’s is expecting earnings per share to be between $12.85 and $13.25, compared with estimates of $12.90, according to LSEG. It’s forecasting revenue between $13 billion and $13.13 billion, roughly in line with estimates of $13.13 billion, according to LSEG. 
The company expects same store sales to rise by 1% to 2%. 
Following the strong quarter, Dick’s raised its quarterly dividend 10% to $1.10 per share. 
Headed into the holiday season, Dick’s raised its sales and earnings outlook for the full year but struck a cautious tone about the crucial holiday shopping period, saying repeatedly it was optimistic for the things “within our control.” 
“We are being conservative on the low end of our guidance,” Hobart said on a call with analysts after Dick’s third-quarter results were announced. “We compete with everyone in the world during the fourth quarter, and also the consumer is going through an awful lot, and we’re just trying to be cautious.”
Read the full earnings release here.

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Home Depot is building four new distribution centers to cater to home professionals.
The pro customers make up about half of Home Depot’s business and are critical to its growth strategy.
Home Depot revenue fell in 2023 and it projected another lackluster year of sales.

A customer wearing a protective mask loads lumber onto a cart at a Home Depot store in Pleasanton, California, on Monday, Feb. 22, 2021.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Home Depot said Thursday that it will open four new distribution centers as it chases more sales from remodelers, contractors and other home professionals. 
The new distribution centers are expected to open in the first half of the year in Detroit, Los Angeles, San Antonio and Toronto. The facilities make room for the bulky size, wider variety and larger orders of products that pros need, such as lumber, shingles and insulation, which then can be delivered directly to a job site. 

Each facility averages approximately 500,000 square feet — about five times the size of the average Home Depot store.
The expansion of the distribution centers is part of a years-long company strategy to attract pros who handle bigger and more extensive projects, such as a major renovation or kitchen remodel. Home Depot has opened 14 similar distribution hubs to serve pros in major metropolitan areas, starting with the first that it opened in Dallas in 2020.
Home Depot draws roughly half of its total sales from pros and the other half from do-it-yourself customers, such as homeowners tackling a painting project.
Yet winning more of pros’ business has become critical as Home Depot tries to return to growth and navigates a higher interest rate environment that has slowed housing turnover and chilled demand for home improvement projects.
Home Depot’s sales declined by 3% in the last fiscal year as customers took on fewer projects after the pandemic. The company said it expects total sales to grow about 1% this fiscal year, including the lift from an additional week. It anticipates comparable sales, which takes out the impact of store openings and closures, to fall about 1%, not including the extra week.

Beating those lackluster expectations could depend on pro customers, who are usually steadier and bigger spenders compared to DIY customers, said Chip Devine, Home Depot’s senior vice president of outside sales, who oversees the company’s pro business. They also need more specialized salespeople and services, which means they’re less likely to jump between retailers or switch to a competitor. 
“We interact with them five times a week,” he told CNBC. “That relationship over time, you become a partner to their business, and that is easier than capturing the elusive consumer.” 
Plus, he said, pros that handle more complex projects have historically used Home Depot like a convenience store where they buy just a few items. That gives Home Depot a lot of room to grow as it adds capabilities to handle pros’ entire orders, he said.
On the other hand, do-it-yourself customers have become a tougher sell. They have made fewer discretionary purchases and tackled smaller home projects in recent quarters. Big-ticket transactions, or those with a price tag of over $1,000, fell by nearly 7% in the fourth quarter compared with the year-ago period, the company said on its earnings call last month.
Home Depot is changing other aspects of its business to support pros who handle complex and pricey projects. It is piloting a program that offers trade credit to pros, which means that Home Depot underwrites a large order and does not charge the pro customer until it is delivered — a standard that’s common in the industry, Devine said.
The retailer also expanded its dedicated sales force for pros. And it has added digital and personalized features for pros, such as tools that help manage complicated orders and a loyalty program that offers perks. 
In a CNBC interview, CEO Ted Decker described building up the pro business as one of three key priorities for the year, along with building new stores and creating a more seamless experience for customers.
He said Home Depot is trying to bring to the pro business what it once did to DIY  — turn itself into a one-stop shop.
“Before Home Depot came along, a consumer doing a project was running to all these different stores,” he said. “You’ve got a hardware store. You’ve got a paint store. You’ve got a flooring store. The pro’s doing the same thing.” More