$KMX and $CMG Earnings Week: Retail Traders Are Picking Sides Before the Bell

Bloomberg Intelligence is waving a yellow flag on $KR ahead of Thursday's print: same-store sales growth at its lowest level since August 2024, with overall sales and profit growth expected to be the weakest of the year. The YouTube Bloomberg Podcasts 'Week Ahead' segment specifically called it out — and that kind of mainstream financial media attention tends to move retail sentiment fast. Kroger is leaning hard into its e-commerce partnerships with Instacart, DoorDash, and Uber Eats, but competing with $AMZN and $WMT on delivery while margins are already under pressure is... a bold strategy, Cotton.

$CMX — wait, $KMX — is also on deck, and used-car sentiment is a surprisingly clean economic signal. With consumers still stretched, CarMax tends to get a bid when new-car sticker shock sends buyers down-market. Watch it closely.

Meanwhile, the AI CapEx debate is very much alive: Andrei Jikh's YouTube breakdown of a Financial Times analysis found that under the most optimistic assumptions — literally zero operational costs — the math on Big Tech's AI buildout barely pencils out. That's not a vibe. That's a spreadsheet screaming into the void.

Earnings season is the market's lie detector test. Some of these companies are about to find out what they actually are.