Gary Friedman
Analyst · Guggenheim Securities
Well, we're as confident as we can be with our outlook. We gave on our outlook on December 3rd, and the aftermarket closed and on December 4th as many of you know we launched a convert, our stock was I think trading after hours of the 1.60s and closed that day at 1.40 something. We started a conference call with the convertible debt. I think we had 40 people on the call. I gave a 20 minute presentation and asked for questions, and it was crickets. And the bankers asked for questions and it was crickets, and we found out in the 20 minutes we were talking to market dropped 400 points on its way to down 800 points and on its way to down 4,000 points in the month of December. And our businesses is to the high end consumer, it's really the top. We built the high end consumer that tied to the stock market, it shouldn't be any new news to anybody that like severe volatility in the stock market is going to sway a business like ours, especially a high ticket business like ours that can be pretty discretionary. So for what we can control, we're super confident. I mean, just step back for a minute and start with the fact that we guided 2018 for 9% to 10% operating margins, and many people thought we couldn't make it and thought we were too aggressive guiding 9% to 10%. We raised guidance 4 times during the year from an earnings point of view, and we beat guidance all 4 times after including the fourth quarter. And we told everybody we're going to manage the business with a bias for earnings versus revenue growth as we try to optimize this model and build the most differentiated and profitable business in our space. And so if we were playing the old game in the fourth quarter, our business were to drop 10 points, we would have pulled a bunch of promotional levers, and we've done a lot of things like everybody else does, and you would have seen a zillion emails, that are at the end of the day, downward spiral and it's detrimental to a brand and to your long term positioning. And we're just not playing that game anymore. So we took the hit on the top line. We think that the business remains tough all the way through January and into February. And we have seen our business now picking up. We feel confident about the outlook. But I can't control and none of us can, anybody on this call today forecast what was going to happen in December, I mean I sure couldn’t on December 3rd. So, we just have the best year in the company's history. We have $2.5 billion company making 12.1% operating margin, name another home furnishings company that's expanding operating margins like we are, that's building a model like we are. We feel great about where we are. I mean, if stock goes down we will buy more stock, I will buy more stock, that's okay. We will take advantage of this on both sides. So it is a great day for team resto, we're in different than this the stock is bouncing around, down 20 points. We're the best earnings in our sector by far. And so that's what we feel quite about. Do I feel bad that we took earnings guidance up on December 3rd? Not at all, the next week our business dropped 10 points and we had no control over that. But I would say one other thing that, the other thing. We could have been around the table here and say, do we still edit the unprofitable categories and holiday, which is not strategically important in respect of render to brand less valuable, all the promotions and stuff we've decided to do in the three points we're taking out of that business. Those are the right long-term decisions for the business. And so people who want to hold the stock, hold the stock, people who want to buy the stock, people that don't, don't buy the stock. We're going to build the best company in our space, and that what we're doing. We're couldn't be more excited about it, Steve.