Retail sales for December put shareholders in companies like Target and Gap on suicide watch. Target same store figures were up about 4%, the low end of expectations. Gap same store sales fell 8%.
Wal-Mart has already turned in poor numbers for the last month of the year,
Pundits and the press want to blame warm weather and procrastinating consumers. How warm weather keeps people out of stores is hard to figure out.
The answer may be much more simple. With home prices dropping, gas prices still fairly high, and sub-prime debt default rates moving up, the consumer may be running out of gas. Jobless filings also increased in the most recently reported period.
Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at [email protected]. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.
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