Many forecasts expect consumer holiday spending to rise this year. An equally impressive set of data forecasts that it will not. The difference in the two points of view shows how challenging it is to…
The US housing market continues to deteriorate. Prices in some states have stabilized. In others, the sharp descent continues. CoreLogic reports that “national home prices, including distressed sales, declined by 4.1 percent.” in September…
Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS) released its new Nook tablet e-reader. The company’s shares move higher by barely 1%. Wall St. must believe, as most analysts do, that the Nook will continue to be crushed by…
Wall St. has voted on how strong holiday sales will be this year. Shares of Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) and Target (NYSE: TGT) are down year to date. Walmart (NYSE: WMT) and Sears (NYSE:…
Amazon.com (NYSE: AMZN) has set the price of the Kindle Fire so low that many analysts believe each unit sold will lose money for the e-commerce company. Amazon will offer free shipping as well.…
The universe of specialty retail stocks is not terribly large, measured either by number of companies or market cap. The entire sector has a market cap of about $310 billion, less than Apple Inc.…
If you have been watching shares of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc. (NASDAQ: GMCR), you would know that the high-flyer has fallen from grace. After a prominent short seller became vocal against the company,…
Filene’s Basement and parent company Syms declared bankruptcy recently. The situation is so grim that Syms will shutter all 46 locations, and 2,500 employees will lose their jobs. The company, founded in 1959, was…
October is not usually a strong month for retailers because shoppers take a break between the back-to-school buying and the coming holiday season. In October 2010, same-store retail sales rose just 1.6% for a…
Grocery stores and supermarkets get whipsawed by rising prices on food commodities, rising prices from food processing companies, and rising fuel prices on one hand and higher unemployment and stagnant wages on the other.…
A couple of weeks ago we looked at implied share price gains at several retailers, and today we’ll take a more focused look at mall anchor stores. Three retailers from our previous survey are…
There will be more “Going Out Of Business” sales after the first of the year than was expected just weeks ago. Deloitte’s annual holiday survey data shows that: Consumers who plan to spend less…
Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) has turned in earnings for its third quarter, and we will be paying extra attention to its fourth quarter. The seller of everything online reported earnings of $0.14 EPS on…
FedEx Corp. (NYSE: FDX) expects to handle more than 260 million packages during the coming holiday season. That’s a 12% increase from a year ago, and to cope with the flood the company plans…
ChartThe Nation Retail Federation expects holiday sales to rise 2.8% to $466 billion this year. That estimate has already been questioned as unemployment stays above 9% and discretionary income remains stagnant. Another indication that this holiday…