The decision to attack Iran has impacted OC\u2019s crop of public companies; see Kevin Costelloe\u2019s front-page story on the new CEO of Surf City-based defense and space supplier Karman Holdings (NYSE: KRMN), whose market cap has nearly tripled over past the past 12 months to almost $14 billion.<\/p>\n
Several area firms dependent on discretionary consumer spending have taken stock hits the last few weeks amid the Iranian conflict, including Irvine\u2019s Boot Barn Holdings Inc. (NYSE: BOOT). The western and workwear retail chain has seen its shares drop nearly 20% this month, giving it a market cap of $4.8 billion.<\/p>\n
The specialty retailer\u2019s decline is somewhat surprising, given the state of oil prices.<\/p>\n
Boot Barn\u2019s fortunes had historically fared better when the price of oil rises, as higher prices brought about more domestic oil production, prompting more spending on the company\u2019s products from \u201cworkers seeking dependable, high-quality footwear and clothing.\u201d Crude oil prices are up over 50% the past month.<\/p>\n
A decade ago, when it had about 200 stores, Boot Barn derived nearly 30% of its $523 million in revenue from just Texas, North Dakota, Colorado and Wyoming, areas whose economies are dependent on oil and other commodities, making the company much more susceptible to market swings related to oil prices.<\/p>\n
An expansion push by former CEO Jim Conroy since then expanded the company\u2019s brick and mortar presence to other markets; it now counts nearly 460 stores, and work-related boots and clothes made up less than 30% of its sales last year, according to the company\u2019s latest annual report.<\/p>\n
Despite the recent setbacks, shares in Boot Barn \u2014 now headed by CEO John Hazen \u2014 are still up 50% over the past 12 months.<\/p>\n
Jim Conroy left Boot Barn at the end of 2024 to take over the CEO role at a larger national retailer, Dublin, Calif.-based Ross Stores Inc., the Fortune 500 company that runs the country\u2019s largest off-price chain, Ross Dress for Less. It counts 2,283 stores nationwide.<\/p>\n
Conroy appears to be running the same successful playbook that earned him a Businesperson of the Year honor from us in early 2025.<\/p>\n
Following a solid Q4 earnings report earlier this month, shares at Ross are now at an all-time high, giving the company a market cap nearing $70 billion (Nasdaq: ROST). Shares in Ross are up 70% over the past year.<\/p>\n
Price-conscious shoppers are boosting traffic to Ross stores, which have \u201cthe best bargains in retail,\u201d Conroy told analysts.<\/p>\n
The U.S. Army said on March 13 it awarded Anduril Industries a contract worth up to $20 billion for its counter-drone technology and products, a deal that has the potential to be the Costa Mesa defense firm\u2019s largest ever.<\/p>\n
Potential is the operative word.<\/p>\n
Matthew Steckman, Anduril president, told news outlets last week that the contract is more like an \u201cordering guide where any buyer within the federal government can buy Anduril commercially made products.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got a lot of messages over the weekend, like, \u2018Oh, you made $20 billion,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no money attached to it, this is just a contract vehicle, but it reduces a lot of friction in things that just simply shouldn\u2019t have it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The decision to attack Iran has impacted OC\u2019s crop of public companies; see Kevin Costelloe\u2019s front-page story on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":211783,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164],"class_list":["post-232738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232738\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}