American Eagle ($AEO) shares are plunging this morning after a pessimistic outlook popped up in its earnings report, with a top-line miss and a bottom-line beat.
Now what remains to be seen, is whether the retailer will be able to pull off the trick that others - like Forever 21 has reportedly failed to do, like Barneys has already failed to do - are struggling with as a potentially choppy retail holiday season approaches: stave off Chapter 11. It's data is positive, or at least as not as bad as other companies that have met worse fates, and much faster.
Right now American Eagle - which has a tendency, like so many other retailers, to cut staffing job posts right after the holiday shopping season wraps up, is staffing up. And, because we know the company has grown stores ever-so-slightly, about 1.59% this year, it's safe to say that American Eagle is trying to grow its way out of an otherwise difficult problem.
The map above, also relates to the last data point - because American Eagle has coast-to-coast operations, the retailer is facing similar pressures to other competitors that its storefront counts as neighbors in US malls. However, between job postings and store count, American Eagle today is facing better trends than other retailers have suffered in 2019.
However, American Eagle has one big asset that other struggling retailers lack - an athliesure brand, in Aerie, that is popular with consumers. Still - as our last chart reflects - consumers aren't contributing much chatter on social networks these days. American Eagle's Facebook ($FB) Talking About Count has continued to slide - and Likes, not pictured, have begun to plateau as well.
About the Data:
Thinknum tracks companies using information they post online - jobs, social and web traffic, product sales and app ratings - and creates data sets that measure factors like hiring, revenue and foot traffic. Data sets may not be fully comprehensive (they only account for what is available on the web), but they can be used to gauge performance factors like staffing and sales.