Lululemon just announced that mean people saying mean things caused their annual outlook to collapse. Not the product. Not the price. Words. The company that charges $128 for stretchy fabric now claims "negative media commentary" tanked their business, which is corporate speak for "journalists noticed our leggings sucked." This is like a restaurant blaming Yelp reviews instead of the rat in the soup.
The earnings call must have been spectacular. Picture executives explaining to analysts that their multi-billion dollar apparel empire crumbled because someone wrote a bad article. "We would have hit our numbers, but TechCrunch was very hurtful." Meanwhile, they also admitted to "disappointing product launches," which translates to: we made pants nobody wanted to buy at prices nobody wanted to pay. Revolutionary business strategy. The technical chart shows a company in freefall, but sure, blame the bloggers.
Retail traders who bought Lululemon at the top are now learning an expensive lesson about athletic wear. They watched influencers do yoga in $150 tights and thought "this is a solid investment thesis." They confused Instagram ads with fundamental analysis. Now they're holding bags heavier than the kettlebells gathering dust in their garage next to their Peloton. The stock is down because the company makes overpriced spandex in a market flooded with identical overpriced spandex, but some genius with a Robinhood account thought brand loyalty for butt-hugging fabric was recession-proof.
Lululemon says things will "get a lot worse before it gets better," which is executive speak for "we have no idea what we're doing." They're essentially warning investors that their guidance is trash, their products are trash, and the media pointing out the trash is the real problem. This company built an empire convincing suburban moms that $100 yoga pants would change their lives, and now that the spell is broken, they're shocked people stopped buying.
The technical indicators showed distribution for months, but retail kept buying because the pants had a cute logo. Perfect.
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