Dolphin Research

This is the third installment of our Walmart deep dive, focusing on Sam's Club — long ignored by investors yet effectively Walmart's third growth engine — and a hard comparison against Costco, the global benchmark for warehouse clubs.

0609 | Dolphin Focus: 🐬 Macro/Industry 1) The US DoD updated its Section 1260H list of Chinese military companies, covering internet, semis, NEVs and biopharma. New additions include Alibaba, BIDU, WuXi AppTec, BYD and Nio, while Huawei, Tencent and Hikvision were already on the list; listed firms issued statements denying defense-related biz and said they will appeal. The list restricts US Gov. procurement rather than imposing financial sanctions, so near-term operating impact is limited but it dampens risk appetite.

In the prior piece, we unpacked Walmart's low-cost engine: township-level, differentiated site selection; an end-to-end, self-run supply chain; reverse pricing with EDLP; and a broad private-label portfolio, showing how 'extreme efficiency + extreme cost discipline' made it the king of offline retail.

0608 | Dolphin Focus: 🐬 Macro/Industry 1) HK and A-shares suffered a broad selloff today. A blowout US NFP flipped rate-cut expectations and pushed UST yields higher, with the tech-led rout on Wall St. spilling into APAC; Korea hit a circuit breaker and Japan tumbled, amplifying fear.

Below is Dolphin Research's Trans from Lululemon's FY26 Q1 earnings call.

Revenue barely in line. Guidance slashed.

LULU 1Q26 First Take: another print with revenue fine but guidance a bomb.

1) Growth improved QoQ but remains soft.

By category, women’s (the core) delivered $1.56bn, +4.4% YoY.

Men’s was $580mn, +6.8% YoY, outpacing women’s.

2) The biggest problem remains a soft North America.

Mainland China was the bright spot: revenue +29%, comps +20%, clearly driven by traffic rather than discounting, making the growth higher quality than in prior quarters.

3) Profit was weak, and guidance was cut sharply.

On opex, earlier-timed brand activations (Indian Wells tennis, Milan Olympics, etc.) and spend tied to distribution-rights competition lifted the SG&A ratio by 310bps to 42.9%.

0604 | Dolphin Research focus: 🐬 Stock pick 1, $SpaceX(SPCX.US) Elon Musk's SpaceX is set to list on Nasdaq on Jun 12 with ticker 'SPCX'. The IPO is priced at $135, targeting $75bn of proceeds and valuing the company at $1.77tn.

The deal would set a new global IPO record by proceeds. This mega listing could siphon liquidity from global markets, while lifting valuations across the commercial space value chain upstream and downstream.

Below is Dolphin Research's Trans of $Broadcom(AVGO.US) FY26 Q2 earnings call. For our earnings take, please see 'AVGO: Giants vs. Giants — Is the ASIC camp splitting?'

Core highlights from the quarter include: 1) shareholder returns and 2) Q3 outlook. The company paid $3.1bn in cash dividends in Q2, equivalent to a quarterly cash dividend of $0.65 per common share, and guides Q3 consolidated revenue of $29.4bn (+84% YoY)...

AVGO posted FY2026 Q2 results (quarter ended Apr 2026) after-hours on Jun 4 Beijing time.

Management guided AI revenue to $56bn for this fiscal year and over $100bn for next fiscal year, both fairly uninspiring.

AVGO First Take: revenue and GPM were broadly in line with the Street. Growth was mainly driven by AI.Ex acquisition amortization and restructuring, underlying GPM was 76%, roughly flat QoQ. Over the medium term, a higher mix of lower-margin ASICs could still weigh on overall margins.

For next quarter, management guides revenue to $29.4bn, up $7.2bn QoQ. This is slightly above the Street at $28.7bn, with growth largely from AI.

Leverage (Total Debt/LTM Adj. EBITDA) fell to 1.8x. The debt impact from the VMware acquisition has been absorbed within two years.

AI remains the focal point: the company delivered $10.8bn of AI revenue this quarter, up $2.4bn QoQ. It guides next quarter AI revenue to $16.0bn, up $5.2bn QoQ, below the Street’s $17.0bn.

Because the Anthropic partnership is shifting from full-rack purchases to chip sales, the Street had already trimmed Anthropic’s contribution to AVGO. Even so, management’s guide, while showing faster AI growth, is still below mainstream houses’ lowered expectations.

On the other hand, management guides AI revenue of $56bn for this FY and $100bn+ for next FY, which is unexciting. In fact, most Street models are already at $130bn+ for next FY.

Overall, AVGO’s AI biz. is still accelerating. Backed by orders from Google’s TPU program and Anthropic, and by its strength on the networking side, it should continue to gain AI share. The market is bullish on its high growth, but guidance in this print was underwhelming.

Against high-growth expectations, a relatively soft guide may weigh on sentiment and valuation near term. AI revenues are still accelerating, and the story in AI semis and connectivity remains intact. For more, follow Dolphin Research’s upcoming First Take and Trans. $Broadcom(AVGO.US)

Since late 2022, when ChatGPT burst onto the scene, AI has unleashed wave after wave of semiconductor supercycle opportunities. From compute (GPUs) and storage to coordination and scheduling (CPUs), the buildout has already minted a string of $1tn market-cap companies.

0603 ｜Dolphin Research focus: 🐬 Stock 1, $Microsoft(MSFT.US) announced seven in-house, full-stack MAI models at the Jun 2 Microsoft Build developer conference, spanning reasoning, coding, and multimodal vision. The flagship reasoning model, MAI-Thinking-1, is positioned against Claude, while coding performance is on par with Anthropic's top-tier version.

Ride-hailing leader $DiDi(DIDIY.US) reported Q1 2026 results pre-market on Jun 2.

Didi 1Q26 First Take: headline results were weak, with adj. EBITA under RMB 200 mn amid heavy investment.However, vs. expectations the print was better — domestic profit release far exceeded forecasts, and Intl growth was strong while losses came in slightly lower than expected (still sizable in absolute terms).

Breakdown:

1) Domestic GTV rose 10% YoY, with growth easing QoQ but slightly above Bloomberg consensus; order growth showed a similar ~1ppt QoQ deceleration, indicating steady momentum.The standout was profit release, with domestic adj. EBITA near RMB 4 bn, well above the market's ~RMB 3.5 bn.Adj. EBITA margin was 4.6% on GTV, up 60bps YoY.

Domestic platform sales grew ~22% YoY, far outpacing GTV and revenue growth of ~10%.This implies a meaningful uplift in net take rate after driver revenue share and other direct costs, rising from 20.6% to 22.8%.

2) Intl was the highlight on growth, with GTV up 59% YoY; ex-FX, +49%, accelerating by over 10ppt QoQ.Orders rose 27% YoY, with only ~2ppt acceleration and well below GTV growth.Mix shifted toward higher-ticket food delivery, lifting GTV more than orders.

Beyond solid growth, Intl adj. EBITA loss was ~RMB 2.9 bn, still large but better than the market's ~RMB 3.1 bn loss estimate and Q4's RMB 3.4 bn.In other words, loss margin narrowed alongside strong growth.

3) Overall, domestic growth was steady while Intl growth was strong; domestic profit release expanded, and Intl losses narrowed.Company revenue maintained ~10% growth.Absolute profit was still under RMB 200 mn, but vs. the market's expected RMB 500 mn loss, this was a clear beat. $DiDi(DIDIY.US)

Full-stack AI bellwether $Alphabet(GOOGL.US) has seen some recent softness in its share price.

Over the past year, Google raised over $85bn via bond offerings across six markets. This new raise is the largest single round to date.

As for use of proceeds, management outlined a broad plan. The 80bn will mainly go to scaling AI infrastructure, concurrently buying call options to partially hedge future dilution from convertible preferreds, and covering taxes due when employee options vest...

0601 | Dolphin Research Watchlist: 🐬 Macro/Industry 1) China’s NEV market May delivery data is out, with Leapmotor, Nio, and ZEEKR posting sharp MoM gains as production and sales sentiment improves. Li Auto and XPeng saw YoY declines in delivery volumes, while BYD’s monthly sales were steady. Performance among leading OEMs is clearly diverging.

Below are Dolphin Research's notes from the FY1Q26 earnings call for $MEITUAN(03690.HK). For our earnings take, please see 'Meituan: As AI draws the fire, finally room to breathe?'.

After the Hong Kong close on Jun 1, the last name in the 'Food Delivery Index' — $MEITUAN(03690.HK) — released its Q1 2026 results. Absolute performance remained weak, with revenue roughly flat and the group still in the red.

However, vs. market expectations the print was decent. The key highlight was that the actual loss in Core Local Commerce came in far below prior guidance, implying faster-than-expected loss reduction in the on-demand retail biz.

Specifically: 1) reporting scope tweak. Before dissecting the quarter, note Meituan made a slight adjustment to how it discloses sub-segment revenue; we flag this upfront.

Meituan 1Q26 First Take: Results were not strong in absolute terms, but beat expectations, driven by faster-than-expected loss narrowing in Core Local Commerce.

First, management made minor tweaks to reporting definitions and restated historical data (our charts still follow the old series, so there may be small gaps vs. the latest disclosure).

Implications include: a) it will be harder to parse the performance of to-home vs. in-store businesses from reported data, increasing reliance on color from small-group calls; b) carving out first-party retail allows better tracking of Xiaoxiang Supermarket's growth.

Total revenue was approx. RMB 91bn (+5% YoY), a slight acceleration vs. last quarter and broadly in line.

By segment, revenue for Core Local Commerce and New Initiatives was broadly in line with expectations.

Dolphin Research believes most of the beat came from the to-home (on-demand delivery) business.

Losses in New Initiatives were also smaller than expected, narrowing to ~RMB 2.1bn vs. RMB 4.65bn last quarter.

On costs and expenses, with revenue growth broadly in line and no clear acceleration, loss narrowing mainly reflects lower subsidies and related spending.

Overall, the to-home business is narrowing losses faster than expected.

This week, $PDD(PDD.US) posted disappointing results, sending the stock down nearly 15%.

The new L9 has launched and is now being delivered. Q2 GPM is expected to recover to ~10%.

Li Auto's 'distressed turnaround' still hasn't arrived

Below is Dolphin Research's Trans of $Costco Wholesale(COST.US) FQ3 2026 earnings call. For our earnings take, see 'Inflation Resurges, Costco Still Resilient'.

Global discount retail leader — $Costco Wholesale(COST.US) — reported after-hours on May 29 its FY2026 Q3 results for the period ended May 10. Overall performance remained very resilient, broadly in line with market expectations.