High-end spenders are painting a mixed picture when it comes to the luxury market’s long-awaited recovery, with softer sales still weighing on company forecasts.
But better-than-feared results from bellwether fashion house LVMH
moved luxury stocks higher Friday, as investors bet on the emergence of green shoots of recovery.
LVMH posted a 4% year-on-year drop in second quarter sales to 19.5 billion euros after the market close Thursday, slightly below a consensus forecast for a 3% decline.
“This was not a stellar quarter for LVMH,” Deutsche Bank’s Adam Cochrane, a luxury equity research analyst, wrote in a Friday note. “However, we see some glimmers of hope with a sequential improvement in cFX [constant currency] sales expected from 3Q onwards and most of the sales weakness related to weaker tourism.”
