Earlier today (Thursday, June 10th), we learned that the BlackBox Index of samestore sales for May 2021 — importantly, these data points are on a two-year basis — was up by +5.4%, with two-year traffic off by -5.3%.
Earlier today, Dine Brands reported adjusted Q1 EPS of $1.75, well above our $0.80 forecast and sell-side consensus (according to Consensus Metrix) of $0.87. We attribute the EPS outperformance relative to our forecast to: (1) a much more favorable tax rate than projection (-6.6% actual vs. 25.0% projected); this helped Q1 EPS by about +46 cents, (2) better-than-expected Cost of Franchise and Restaurant Revenues as a percentage of Franchise and Restaurant Revenues (47.9% actual vs. 51.8% estimated), (3) more favorable than anticipated G&A/Revenue (19.5% actual vs. 20.6% forecasted), and (4) same-store sales than beat expectations for both Applebee’s U.S. and IHOP U.S.
We recently published a series of reports examining how various restaurant stocks
have traded in the week leading up to, and immediately after, their last 24 quarterly
earnings releases. This report summarizes the trends we found.