Lululemon shares have gained 283% in the past five years, versus 90% for the Nasdaq and 53% for the S&P 500.

And yet, the volume of news coverage the company receives hasn’t increased much.

If anything, the company is getting less coverage, with any big spikes coming when they report earnings. (See chart).

It’s certainly nowhere near what one would expect given its bellwether status for the athleisure wear movement. 

It’s also surprising given the company’s performance during the Covid-19 crisis (online sales are up 50% versus January and 200% versus a year ago.)

One explanation is that its harder that you might think for reporters to shift their focus. And the longer-term annual averages would seem to bear that out.

Lululemon garnered a daily average of 33 stories in 2020, versus 36 in 2019; 39 in 2018; 48 in  2017 and 56 in 2016. That is to say, little changed despite a massive share gain.

And that’s a pattern you see for many companies.

A word about the data: I drew the daily story counts for Lulu from Bloomberg’s database of 175,000 news sources.

To replicate on the Bloomberg professional terminal, type {Chart Daily News Flow LULU <go>}