November Retail Sales Terrible, but Retail Stocks Higher

As expected, November retail sales were just terrible. Here are same store sales* for some retailers:

• Kohl’s (KSS): -17.5%
• Macy’s (M): -13.3%
• JC Penney (JCP): -11.9%
• Neiman Marcus (NMG): -11.9%
• Target (TGT): -10.4%
• Gap (GPS): -10.0%
• Saks (SKS): -5.2%
• Costco U.S. (COST): -2.0%
• Wal-Mart U.S. (WMT): +3.0%

* Last year there was an extra week of post-Thanksgiving shopping that fell in November whereas this year it will be in December therefore pushing down November’s sales and pushing up December’s. Therefore, the most accurate comparisons will come from comparing November and December with last year. Nevertheless, it’s pretty clear that retail sales are getting crushed.

Interestingly, all of these stocks were up a good amount this morning, possibly suggesting that all this bad news is already in the stocks.

Disclosure: Top Gun is long shares of Walmart (WMT) and Costco (COST) and has no position in any of the other companies mentioned.

Comments

[Klugwannnabe:]

The retail management,Macy's in particular,is not up to major changes in business plans that are needed to survive the financial blizzard of 2008.There must be far more interaction between the Internet and the Brick and Mortar sides,with one reenforcing the other rather than treating each other as competitors.The Brick gang must find ways to get customers into the stores with new temptations and visions of fun and games while using the Internet to actually cut down the inventory of stored Brick merchandise to increase the Return on Investment.
Try to sell that technique to the "old"Brick management and you think you are talking to the Dinasaurs in Detroit.................. answer:Just like Detroit.......New Management

2008 Dec 05 08:31 AM