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时间:2024-09-29 12:32:08 来源:网络整理 编辑:Exploration
LAUREL, Md. (AP) -- The Latest on NASA's New Horizons' New Year rendezvous (all times local):10: 40 cymbalta ruined my marriage
LAUREL,cymbalta ruined my marriage Md. (AP) -- The Latest on NASA's New Horizons' New Year rendezvous (all times local):
10: 40 a.m.
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has survived humanity's most distant exploration of another world.
Ten hours after the middle-of-the-night encounter 4 billion miles (6.4 billion kilometers) away, flight controllers in Laurel, Maryland, received word from the spacecraft late Tuesday morning. Cheers erupted at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory, home to Mission Control.
An anxious spill-over crowd in a nearby auditorium joined in the loud celebration.
New Horizons zoomed past the small celestial object known as Ultima Thule 3 ½ years after its spectacular brush with Pluto. Scientists say it will take nearly two years for New Horizons to beam back all its observations of Ultima Thule, a full billion miles (1.6 billion kilometers) beyond Pluto. At that distance, it takes six hours for the radio signals to reach Earth.
___
12:33 a.m.
A NASA spacecraft opens the new year at the most distant world ever explored, a billion miles beyond Pluto.
Flight controllers say everything looked good for New Horizons' flyby of the tiny, icy object at 12:33 a.m. Tuesday, 3 ½ years after its encounter with Pluto. Confirmation won't come for hours, though, given the vast distance. The mysterious target nicknamed Ultima Thule (TOO-lee) is 4 billion miles (6.4 billion kilometers) from Earth.
Scientists want New Horizons observing Ultima Thule, not phoning home. So they won't know until late morning whether the spacecraft survived.
With New Horizons on autopilot, Mission Control at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, was empty. Instead, team members and their guests gathered nearby for back-to-back countdowns at midnight and again 33 minutes later.
Queen guitarist Brian May, who also happens to be an astrophysicist, joined the team at Johns Hopkins for a midnight premiere of the song he wrote for the big event.
____
10:50 a.m.
A tiny, icy world a billion miles beyond Pluto is getting a New Year's Day visitor.
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is set to fly past a mysterious object nicknamed Ultima Thule (TOO-lee) at 12:33 a.m. Tuesday. It will become the most distant world ever explored by humankind.
The flyby comes 3½ years after New Horizons swung past Pluto and yielded the first close-ups of the dwarf planet.
This time, the drama will unfold 4 billion miles (6.5 billion kilometers) from Earth, so far away it will be 10 hours before flight controllers in Laurel, Maryland, know whether the spacecraft survived the close encounter.
Lead scientist Alan Stern said Monday the team has worked years for this moment and now, "it's happening!!"
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As shown below, the results in the quarter materially changed the trend in two-year stacked comps for each of the banners, along with a significant acceleration for consolidated comps.
The increase in consolidated comps was the primary driver of an 8% increase in revenues to $6.3 billion. The company ended the quarter with 15,370 locations, up less than 1% year-over-year. This reflects a 7% increase in Dollar Tree units, offset by a 4% decline in Family Dollar units.
The top-line results at each banner flowed through to their respective income statements, with Dollar Tree gross margins and operating margins declining year-over-year while Family Dollar gross margins and operating margins expanded year-over-year. On a consolidated basis, gross margins contracted by 120 basis points in the quarter to 28.5%, reflective of a shift to lower-margin consumables, tariff costs and the impact of markdowns from the Easter headwinds at the Dollar Tree banner. The company saw slight operating leverage on SG&A from higher comps, with the net result being an 80 basis point contraction in operating margins to 5.8%, with operating income declining 5% to $366 million. This is not adjusted for $73 million of pandemic-related costs, such as PPE supplies.
In the first quarter, the company opened 85 stores (net of closures) and completed 220 Family Dollar renovations to the H2 format. Importantly, comps at renovated Family Dollar stores continue to outpace the chain average by more than 10%. On the call, management indicated that they plan on reducing both the number of new store openings (from 550 to 500) and the number of H2 renovations (from 1,250 to 750) in 2020.
Personally, given the fact that Family Dollar is seeing material benefits to its business from the pandemic with new or lapsed customers coming into its stores, I think the company should try to get more aggressive with its renovation plans, not less. On the other hand, you could argue that renovations cause short-term disruptions and limit their ability to fully capitalize on the business momentum they are currently experiencing.
As a result of fewer new stores and remodels, management now expects 2020 capital expenditures to total $1.0 billion compared to previous guidance of $1.2 billion. In addition, the company has temporarily suspended share repurchases. At quarter's end, the company had $1.8 billion in cash on its balance sheet compared to $4.3 billion in total debt.
Conclusion
In recent years, Dollar Tree has been a tale of two cities. While its namesake banner has generally delivered impressive financial results, Family Dollar has been a persistent underperformer. This quarter, those results flipped, and given what we've seen in the weeks since quarter's end, there's a decent possibility that we will see something similar in the coming months. As the CEO noted, the second quarter is off to a very good start at Family Dollar.
Here's the important question: how useful is that information is in terms of making future predictions about the business? Will recent success at Family Dollar translate into long-term success for the banner? The optimistic take is that new or lapsed customers, especially those visiting the renovated stores, could become recurring business for the banner. The pessimistic take is that they have experienced short-term success out of necessity as people went to any store that was open to try and find essentials like toilet paper and hand sanitizer that were largely out of stock throughout the retail landscape. From that view, many of these customers could abandon the retailer when life returns to normal. As Philbin noted on the conference call, early on [during the pandemic], folks needed us. Will people still shop as much at Family Dollar when it's no longer a necessity?
Personally, I do not place too much weight on the recent results. I will need to see incremental data points that indicate that Family Dollar has truly won sustained business from these new customers. While I still believe that the Dollar Tree banner is a well-positioned retailer with attractive unit returns, I'm not yet willing to say the same thing for Family Dollar. For that reason, along with the recent run-up in the stock price, I plan on staying on the sidelines for now.
Disclosure: None
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