Just caught Endeavour Group's H1 numbers and the picture's pretty mixed honestly. Their net profit took a hit, down 17 percent to A$247 million, while underlying earnings dropped 6.7 percent. The retail segment's EBIT fell 11.6 percent too, which is noticeable. But here's the thing - overall sales actually managed to edge up 0.9 percent to A$6.68 billion, and retail specifically grew 0.2 percent. Guess margins got squeezed somewhere.

What caught my eye though is how the H1 results are holding up so far in the second half. First seven weeks showed retail sales up 1.3 percent and hotels segment jumping 4.5 percent, which suggests some momentum returning. They're paying out an interim dividend of 10.8 cents per share too, so management's still confident enough. Share price dropped about 4.3 percent though - typical market reaction to profit declines I suppose. The company mentioned February sales cooled off compared to January, so looks like they're watching the momentum closely as we move through the year.