Raymond James upgrades On Holding, downgrades Deckers ahead of earnings

Raymond James upgraded On Holding to Strong Buy and set a $52 price target, implying about 15.5x EV/EBITDA, while downgrading Deckers to Outperform from Strong Buy without a bearish call. The firm still expects Deckers to beat Q4 revenue and margins and forecasts FY2027 EPS of $7.40 versus the Street at $7.30. Commentary also highlights supportive tax refund trends, but $4.04/gallon gasoline and tariff uncertainty remain headwinds for discretionary spending and margins.

Analysis

The key takeaway is not that ONON is "cheap," but that it has become a cleaner leverage play on resilient discretionary spend than the higher-beta consumer complex. If pricing power is truly intact while freight and tariff assumptions remain conservative, the market is likely underestimating operating leverage into the next 2-3 quarters, especially given how quickly a sentiment reset can re-rate premium growth names once EPS revisions turn positive. The second-order effect is that ONON can keep taking share from incumbents without needing a broad consumer recovery, which makes it less dependent on macro improvement than NKE or DECK.

DECK's downgrade looks more like a timing issue than a thesis break, but that distinction matters for positioning. The setup suggests the name may already be pricing a good deal of near-term beat potential, leaving less upside unless management raises the medium-term margin bridge or the tariff/freight backdrop proves materially better than modeled. In that context, DECK is vulnerable to an "earnings good, guide not good enough" reaction, particularly if investors rotate toward names where estimates are still too low rather than merely too optimistic.

The broader consumer signal is that the market is still anchoring on a worse tariff and input-cost regime than what may actually show up in reported margins over the next few quarters. That creates a path for gross margin upside across the group, but the strongest asymmetry sits with brands that have both pricing power and cleaner inventories. The contrarian miss is that the real trade may be not "consumer weak/strong," but dispersion: winners are the companies that can convert a modest improvement in top-line demand plus lower-than-feared tariff pass-through into operating leverage, while the laggards are those whose equity stories already require perfection.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Initiate a tactical long ONON into earnings with a 4-8 week horizon; favor call spreads over stock to express upside from multiple re-rating and estimate revisions, with risk limited to a post-print de-rating if growth decelerates.
• Use DECK as a relative-value short against ONON rather than an outright bearish bet; look for a 1-2 month pair if DECK rallies into earnings on sentiment, since upside may be capped by already-embedded expectations.
• Add selective long exposure to NKE as a delayed-beneficiary trade on improved gross margin assumptions over the next 2-3 quarters, but only on weakness; the better setup is a slow-moving re-rating, not a near-term catalyst.
• Keep FIGS on the watchlist as a secondary beneficiary of lower-than-modeled tariff pressure and resilient consumer spend, but size smaller given lower conviction and weaker second-order share-gain potential than ONON.
• If DECK gaps higher on earnings, consider selling call spreads or taking profits quickly; the risk/reward skews against chasing because the catalyst is likely to confirm, not expand, the current thesis.