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Best Buy Blows Away Fiscal 2nd Quarter Estimates – Yet Its Stock Drops; Why?

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Best Buy store

Best Buy Co. Inc. (NYSE: BBY) had what appeared to be a big win this week, generating financial results that handily beat its fiscal second quarter estimates, driven largely by a huge 242.2% increase in ecommerce sales. Their fiscal second quarter, the 13-week period that ended August 1, 2020 was big, coming in at $9.910 billion – even in a COVID-19 ravaged quarter – fully 4% higher than the $9.536 billion in the same quarter in 2019.

And yet, the company’s stock value DROPPED on the announcement of their quarterly results. And in after-hours trading, Best Buy stock lost as much as 5% of its value. Why did that happen?

See why Best Buy stock got hit, on good news…

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Sonos Adds Top Microsoft Executive to Its Board of Directors

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Photo of Sonos One

Sonos, Inc. (NASDAQ: SONO) announced this week that they are adding a new member to their Board of Directors. In fact, they even increased the size of the Board to make room for this new addition. The news surprised – and impressed – many market observers, as the person they are adding is Panos Panay, a top Microsoft Corp. executive. You see, if you are not familiar with Panay, there is something special about his background that makes him an intriguing addition to the Sonos Board.

Learn more about this Sonos recruitment…

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Housing’s On Fire – Housing Starts Jump 22.6% in July

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housing construction

By almost any measure, the housing market is in a major rebound, with the U.S. Commerce Department reporting on Tuesday that residential construction starts jumped an impressive 22.6% in July. This is the largest jump in housing starts in almost four years, according to a report by Reuters.

Learn more on the rebound of housing starts…

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Making Space for Onkyo Brands, Voxx Announces Subsidiary Reorganization

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Voxx International logo

Voxx Expects Big Growth; That May Be a Bigger Challenge Than Anticipated

As part of an internal restructuring to accommodate their recent acquisition of the distribution rights to certain Onkyo brands, Voxx International Corporation announced this week that it has renamed the existing Klipsch Holding LLC to the rather generically named Premium Audio Company LLC. This is just the first change, as I’ve learned more announcements are just around the corner.

See more on the Voxx & Klipsch plans for Onkyo…

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Corp. Comms. Expert Crestron Launches Flex MM for Growing WFA* Future

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*Work From Anywhere

By now, most in the industry know that Crestron Electronics, the widely renowned luxury residential electronics systems manufacturer, is also a large major supplier of high quality and mission critical solutions for the corporate commercial and industrial markets. Today, the company is announcing that their two divisions worked together to create a new product called the Flex MM – a unique, flexible, unified communications solution that is just about perfect for the new Work From Home…or as Creston likes to call it…the Work from Anywhere…remotely distributed workforce.

See more on this new solution from Crestron…

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COVID-19 Claims Another Victim – The 2021 Florida Audio Expo

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The Florida Audio Expo announced this week that they are cancelling their February 2021 high-end audio exposition due to “the extraordinary times and continued uncertainty.” Although their announcement does not explicitly name COVID-19 or SARS-CoV2, comments by show founders make it clear, noting that they “put our customers well being first.”

See more on the cancellation of the Florida Audio Expo…

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A COVID Catastrophe – Emerald Reports 93% Drop in Q2 Revenues; Confirms Insurance Payments

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Emerald owns CEDIA expo

Owner of CEDIA Expo & CEPro Looks to Turn the Corner from COVID…Some Day

Emerald Holding Inc. (NYSE:EEX) – formerly Emerald Expositions Events, Inc. – released their fiscal 2020 second quarter results this week and it’s no surprise that they were brutal, as the company continues to find itself caught in a COVID catastrophe that is killing in-person events, like the very expositions they produce. With the second quarter covering the period of April – June, the previous peak of the pandemic’s infections and deaths (since exceeded), the company performance – as expected – was really challenged, with the bulk of their various trade shows and in-person events cancelled or postponed.

But the company did have one piece of good news…the insurance companies providing event cancellation insurance to the company have begun paying against their claims.

See an analysis of Q2 results for Emerald…

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Q2 GDP Crashes 33% in Worst Economic Quarter in Recorded History

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graph showing downturn

In new economic data released by the government today, the real gross domestic product (GDP) for the second quarter of 2020 declined an astonishing 32.9%, the worst ever such reading in recorded history. This result follows a decline of 5% in the first quarter and demarks a deep and painful recession resulting from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic engulfing the United States, and the world.

Learn more about this stunning GDP crash…

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Sources: Nortek Security & Control Shutting Down Niles and Sunfire Brands

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An image of the website of Niles, a Nortek Security & Control brand

Multiple sources are confirming to Strata-gee that Nortek Security & Control (NSC or Nortek) is planning to shut down two of their brands – Sunfire and the once iconic Niles. The move is said to be the result of their relative under-performance as the company shifts its focus to the apparently more successful brands, such as Elan.

See more on the closing of Niles & Sunfire by Nortek

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Is the Residential Wellness Segment About to Explode?

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PureTech Alliance logo, a new group promoting residential wellness or healthy home

A New National Rep Group is Counting On It

A national network of sales representatives have formed a group to promote and sell products supporting the residential wellness segment – sometimes known as the “healthy home” segment. Called the PureTech Alliance, the organization was conceived and formed by two former founding members of another national group – this one of regional specialty A/V distributors – known as the Alliance of Value Added Distributors (AVAD).

AVAD went on to become a successful $200 million national distributor that helped drive the growth of the custom installation channel and was ultimately acquired by Ingram Micro. Will lightening strike twice?

See more on PureTech Alliance and residential wellness…

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