Latest news with #Rainey
Chicago Tribune
23-05-2025
- Sport
- Chicago Tribune
Crunch time for Marian Catholic takes on whole new meaning for Purdue recruit Kendyl Rainey. ‘I like Cheez-Its.'
When she's not on base or in the field, senior shortstop/outfielder Kendyl Rainey isn't hard to find in Marian Catholic's dugout. Mya Davis, her teammate and best friend, just listens for the crunch. 'She's always eating,' Davis said, laughing. 'She snacks too much in the dugout.' The Purdue recruit broke into a smile. Guilty as charged. 'I'm hype,' Rainey said. 'I'm real hype. I like Cheez-Its right now. I had some today.' They were snacks of success Thursday afternoon for Rainey and the host Spartans in an 8-7 nonconference win over De La Salle in Chicago Heights. Rainey produced three hits, including a triple and a home run. Gracie Jensen also homered for Marian (11-15), while Ella DeNormandie had two hits and Jackie Pollock added a key double. The Spartans walked it off on a grounder by Morgan McMahon to second base that brought in Abby Gustavson. Samara Agredano delivered three hits, including a homer, for De La Salle (23-10). Mya Alvarez and Kayla Kamradt contributed two hits apiece. Rainey has made a major impact during her senior — and only — season for Marian's varsity. Before her junior year, she transferred to Marian from Munster, Indiana. Due to Illinois High School Association rules, she had to sit out a year. Still, she was an unofficial contributor to the softball team. 'I was a manager, did things like soft toss for them on game days,' Rainey said. 'I still practiced with them and everything.' Senior year has seen so much more. She's hitting .471 out of the leadoff spot with nine doubles, five triples, five homers and 15 RBIs. She also leads the team with 18 stolen bases. Marian coach Kelly Murray plays her at short or in center. Against De La Salle, Rainey started the game at short and finished in center. She led off the first inning with a triple and then drove a home run over the fence in center in the fourth. 'I really just read the defense,' Rainey said. 'When the defense plays me in, that's when I power slap and soft slap. But I can swing away, too.' Slapping ability. Speed. Power. A good glove. And that sense of humor … 'She is one of my favorite kids to coach,' Murray said. 'She's always joking around. But when it's time to turn it on, she's serious and makes it happen. She's the first one and the last one in the cage every single day. 'That's why she's going to Purdue.' This weekend, Rainey went to Eastern Illinois to compete at the Class 2A girls track state meet as a member of the 400 relay team. This spring has seen her succeed with quite a juggling act while being a multisport athlete in the same season. She's had some interesting doubleheaders. 'I've done track meets and softball games on the same day, when they were at the same place or real close,' Rainey said. 'The meets usually start at 3 o'clock and the softball games at 4:30. The track coach will put me in events at the beginning and then I'll go to softball.' Most recently, Rainey competed in a track sectional at Hillcrest and played a softball game later that day at Tinley Park. She remembers vividly doing double duty at Marist. 'Right after I ran, I went to the softball game and got hit by a pitch,' Rainey said. 'I got hit right on my kneecap. That was a tough day.' Nothing she couldn't handle, though.
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump orders Walmart to ‘eat the tariffs' and stop blaming his trade war for rising prices: ‘I'll be watching'
Fresh back from his Middle Eastern tour, President Donald Trump turned his attention to domestic economic issues on Saturday, lashing out at Walmart for its announcement that prices will start going up this month as tariffs on imports start to bite. America's largest retailer warned customers this week that price increases for many products are imminent because, as the company's chief financial officer, John David Rainey, said, the tariffs are 'still too high' — even with the recently announced agreement to lower duties on imports from China to 30 percent for 90 days. The president has long insisted that tariffs are a tax on foreign countries. However, they are a tax on imports collected at the border and paid for by the importer, raising the end price of goods for American shoppers. On Saturday morning, Trump appeared to acknowledge this, saying that Walmart should 'eat the tariffs' and not pass the higher cost of sourcing goods on to its customers. He wrote on Truth Social: 'Walmart should STOP trying to blame Tariffs as the reason for raising prices throughout the chain. Walmart made BILLIONS OF DOLLARS last year, far more than expected. Between Walmart and China they should, as is said, 'EAT THE TARIFFS,' and not charge valued customers ANYTHING. I'll be watching, and so will your customers!!!' Rainey told CNBC this week: 'We're wired for everyday low prices, but the magnitude of these increases is more than any retailer can absorb.' 'It's more than any supplier can absorb. And so I'm concerned that consumer is going to start seeing higher prices,' he said. 'You'll begin to see that, likely towards the tail end of this month, and then certainly much more in June.' Walmart's first-quarter profit slipped as the company said it was not immune to the impact of the tariffs. The company expects sales to increase 3.5 percent to 4.5 percent in the second quarter, but did not issue a profit outlook because Trump's tariff policies are constantly changing. Walmart is among the first U.S. retailers to report its financial results for the first quarter, giving a snapshot of the mood of American shoppers. Trump's tariffs have increased the cost of toys, strollers, and appliances, among other products, after he slapped a base rate of 10 percent duties on goods entering the U.S. from most countries. Walmart's CEO Doug McMillon said that the company will 'do our best' to keep prices low, but echoed Rainey's comments. 'Given the magnitude of the tariffs, even at the reduced levels announced this week, we aren't able to absorb all the pressure given the reality of narrow retail margins,' McMillon said. Many Americans have been pulling back on spending as they grow uneasy about the economy, and inflation remains elevated. U.S. consumers spent slightly more at retail stores in March to get ahead of the then-widely expected tariffs, which Trump announced on April 2, dubbed by him as 'Liberation Day.' Sales at retail stores and restaurants rose just 0.1 percent in April from March, a sharp slowdown from a 1.7 percent gain in the previous month. Consumer prices have risen 2.3 percent in April compared with a year earlier, according to the Department of Labor report published Tuesday. Trump says his intention is to encourage U.S. consumers to buy American products, stimulate domestic manufacturing, and create jobs. For decades, American consumers have been used to low-cost foreign-made goods filling shelves at big box stores such as Walmart. Retailers have been sounding the alarm for months that Trump's trade policy could bring that to an end. A photo posted on Reddit appears to show how much the price of something as simple as a phone charging cable is going up. The $9.99 USB-C cord from the store's in-house Heyday brand now costs $17.99, according to the poster, identified as a Target employee by The Daily Mail. Trump even admitted at his most recent Cabinet meeting that Americans — particularly children, apparently — should prepare to expect less and to pay more for that. The president said: 'Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls.' He also suggested those two dolls could 'cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally.' When Mattel, the creator of Barbie, Hot Wheels, Uno, American Girl, and more, said it would diversify its production to other countries, but not the U.S., Trump threatened to retaliate. Ynon Kreiz, chairman and CEO of Mattel, told CNBC in early May that, regardless of tariffs, costs are too high in the U.S. to produce affordable toys for even the American consumer. Kreiz said that a 'significant portion' of toy creation does occur in the U.S., such as design, development, product engineering and brand management, but that producing toys overseas allows them to create a 'quality' and 'affordable' product. When asked about the statement, Trump said: 'That's ok. Let him go, and we'll put a 100 percent tariff on his toy, and he won't sell one toy in the United States, and that's their biggest market.' Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Walmart's warning of higher prices puts spotlight on ‘RIM accounting' practice favored by big retailers
Retail giant Walmart is known for low prices, but those prices are about to go up. On its latest earnings call, CEO Doug McMillon and CFO John David Rainey warned that the company cannot absorb all the cost increases resulting from President Trump's tariffs, even after some rates were reduced following negotiations. The executives said Walmart will begin raising prices on certain products as early as the end of May, with more noticeable increases expected in June. 'The level of tariffs that result from those discussions and the timing of when they ultimately become final may cause larger swings in our financial performance from one quarter to the next,' Rainey said on the May 15 call. The veteran CFO also gave a brief lesson on Walmart's method of accounting for the cost of inventory for the majority of its U.S. business. Known as the retail inventory method, or RIM, this practice makes these swings more difficult to forecast. 'We've always used RIM in Walmart U.S.,' Rainey said. 'It's not new for us, and it's a common method of accounting in the retail industry.' RIM accounting applies a ratio of the actual cost of the inventory to its retail price to calculate ending inventory and, therefore, derive cost of goods sold, he said. Rising prices can lead to higher inventory markups and increased margins, but later markdowns may offset these gains, Rainey explained. The resulting fluctuations in costs are unprecedented for Walmart and could cause significant swings in quarterly margins and earnings, he said. According to Sang Hyun 'Sam' Park, an associate professor at Augusta University's Hull College of Business, U.S. GAAP gives retailers two main ways to price inventory at period-end: the use of RIM or tracking every SKU's exact cost. Walmart isn't the only big box retailer to use RIM, which means the implications of see-saw tariffs on this accounting method may be wide-reaching. RIM is popular at chains that sell millions of low-ticket items, like Walmart, Target, and Home Depot, because management already knows each product's shelf price but not its precise landed cost until weeks later, Park told Fortune. 'By applying a single 'cost-to-retail' percentage to the ticket price, the accountant can finish the books quickly without scanning every purchase order,' Park explained. Modern enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, which automate core processes such as accounting, can handle item-level data, he said. 'But for high-volume, low-margin general merchandise, the faster, cheaper RIM shortcut still wins,' Park said. He further explained how RIM is affected by tariffs. Landed cost is the all-in amount it takes to bring goods to the shelf: a total of supplier invoice, freight, insurance, import duty (tariff), and brokerage fees. Under RIM, that amount feeds the 'cost' side of the cost-to-retail ratio. Tariffs wind up squeezing the margin. 'Tariffs inflate landed cost, nudging the cost-to-retail ratio higher,' Park said of Walmart's situation. 'A quick shelf-price hike can mask that hit for a while, but markdowns later force the higher cost back into earnings.' During the earnings call, Rainey also said he is concerned about the possibility of LIFO-related charges as prices go up. LIFO, short for Last-In, First-Out, is an inventory accounting method where the most recently purchased or produced goods are assumed to be sold first. To address these accounting challenges, Park foresees Rainey using a new playbook when it comes to data granularity, scenario planning, and governance—but not an accounting policy overhaul. 'What Walmart's CFO hints at is the need for supplementary tools,' he said. That includes more frequent recalibration of cost complements, layered RIM pools (such as separating tariff-sensitive imports), richer disclosure, and tighter forecasting analytics. For the first quarter, Walmart's revenue increased 2.5% year over year to $165.6 billion, U.S. same-store sales increased 4.5%, and its e-commerce business reached profitability for the first time. This story was originally featured on
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump's Tariffs Will Cost Consumers, Walmart CFO Grimly Warns
Walmart's Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey warned Thursday that shoppers could begin to feel price increases on consumer goods as soon as next month as a result of Donald Trump's tariffs. 'We're wired for 'Everyday Low Prices,' but the magnitude of these increases is more than any retailer can absorb,' Rainey told CNBC. 'It's more than any supplier can absorb. And so I'm concerned that the consumer is going to start seeing higher prices. You'll begin to see that, likely towards the tail end of this month, and then certainly much more in June.' The CFO explained that Walmart imports a third of its merchandise and food from other countries, with China being the largest supplier, followed by Mexico, Canada, India, and Vietnam. The retail giant is therefore vulnerable to supply chain disruptions sparked by Trump's sweeping reciprocal tariff policy. Rainey said that it wouldn't be easy to adapt to changes in demand sparked by fluctuations in pricing. 'We've not seen a period where you've had prices go up this high, this quickly. We're well equipped and experienced in dealing with elasticities or price increases that are going up 2 or 3 percent, but not 30 percent,' Rainey said. He promised the company would 'keep prices as low as we can, for as long as we can.' Rainey also told CNBC that while Walmart had yet to cancel any orders as a result of the president's tariffs, they had reduced some on occasion. CNBC reported that Walmart is not giving guidance for second-quarter operating income due to the wide range that it would have to give, because it uses a cost-to-sales price ratio that would be nearly impossible to predict. The company still held its annual operating income predictions. Rainey did warn that there could be 'sharper swings in margins and earnings' as a result of quickly changing prices. 'Keep in mind, just a week ago we were at 145 percent tariffs. Now, we're very appreciative of the progress the administration has made to get them down to this level, but I would say it's still too high for consumers. We'd like to see them come down more,' he added. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced Monday that U.S. tariffs on China would temporarily decrease from 145 percent to 30 percent for the next 90 days. On the flip side, China said it would lower its import tariff on American products to 10 percent from 125 percent. While the announcement caused investors to breathe a sigh of relief, market experts were wary that the agreement was not an actual deal—and the agreed rate was far lower than the ones Trump had been spouting for weeks. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Walmart's global ad business soars 50% following Vizio integration
This story was originally published on Marketing Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Marketing Dive newsletter. Walmart's global advertising business grew 50% year over year in the retailer's fiscal Q1 2026, boosted by the integration of connected TV device maker Vizio, according to an earnings statement. Stripping out Vizio, the ad segment was up 27% YoY on an 'apples-to-apples basis,' said CFO John David Rainey on a call discussing the results with analysts. Walmart Connect, the retailer's U.S. retail media arm that does not yet include Vizio, increased ad sales 31% YoY in Q1. Taken together, Walmart's advertising and membership offerings make up a quarter of company profits, Rainey added. A diversification of income streams could help Walmart weather the impact of tariffs, a major focus of the earnings report. Walmart leadership's cautionary comments on price hikes as a result of higher tariffs — and the Trump administration's chastising response to the company — dominated a lot of the talk around the Q1 earnings report. Beyond the trade war back-and-forth, the quarter extended a strong run of growth for the big-box store's retail media business, which recently integrated CTV player Vizio. Removing Vizio from the picture, Walmart still posted impressive figures on the advertising front, with U.S. retail media arm Connect seeing revenue jump 31% YoY. Momentum in segments like advertising helped Walmart's e-commerce business achieve profitability in Q1 for the first time. Total revenue was up 2.5% to $165.6 billion over the period, though the company fell short of analyst expectations on quarterly sales. Walmart acquired Vizio last year for $2.3 billion, shoring up its foothold in a CTV arena that is converging with retail media. This spring's upfronts, an occasion for publishers and platforms to pitch brands on larger ad-spending commitments, has underpinned how retail media data is increasingly being leveraged to enhance CTV and digital video campaigns. Vizio enriches Walmart's capabilities in premium video while opening a deeper well of viewership data and direct brand relationships to draw on as retail media competition increases. Those assets could prove particularly valuable in the battle against Amazon, which has a far larger advertising business and more established know-how in CTV thanks to Fire TV and Prime Video. Ensuring advertising remains a profit driver could be critical as Walmart contends with an uncertain macroeconomic picture that has soured consumer sentiment. Walmart has already been pushing advertising partners to hike their annual spending on retail media, even though some of those brands have seen sluggish sales, Adweek reported last month Recommended Reading How Walmart Connect is growing the 'connective tissue' of retail media Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
