StockBeat – Levi Strauss Rises as Macquarie Hails Innovation Efforts

Investing.com – Levi Stauss on Tuesday made it on the list of fashionable investing at Macquarie, who hailed the denim maker’s efforts to make its brand more appealing to women and millennials.

Macquarie initiated coverage on Levi with an overweight rating, highlighting the denim maker’s “great” job of reinventing itself, with a move beyond its core mens jeans business, which makes up nearly 70% of sales. Levi Strauss (NYSE:) rose 2.9% by 1:57 p.m. ET (17:57 GMT).

“Levi’s has always prided itself by being at the forefront of innovation. This is important, as research has shown that companies with higher R&D spend will outperform in the long term,” the bank said in a note to clients. “As such, innovation is one of the key tenets behind our outperform thesis on Levi’s,” it added.

With women and millennials in its crosshairs, Levi’s has “significant” opportunity to diversify its revenue base by geography, by channel and by gender, Macquarie suggested.

In the recent past, however, Levi has come under fire from some on Wall Street, who worry the company is vulnerable to the weaker backdrop for department stores, which brands like Levi’s rely on to flog merchandise.

To wean itself off its department-store dependence, the demin maker has been spending big to accelerate its direct-to-consumer approach.

Levis rose 2%, but is roughly unchanged from its IPO price of $17.

Disclaimer: Fusion Media would like to remind you that the data contained in this website is not necessarily real-time nor accurate. All CFDs (stocks, indexes, futures) and Forex prices are not provided by exchanges but rather by market makers, and so prices may not be accurate and may differ from the actual market price, meaning prices are indicative and not appropriate for trading purposes. Therefore Fusion Media doesn`t bear any responsibility for any trading losses you might incur as a result of using this data.

Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.