(snip)Not a lot of analysis here, just some ugly numbers to present. Then the reader can determine with crystal clarity just how well the spend til you drop consumer is doing. Looks to me like he is at last dropping and hitting the concrete dead on arrival, swamped by debt service expenses, high costs, falling (not just stagnate) house prices, and unreported job losses. First let’s take a look at how he has already replaced his diminished ability to extract manna from his house as ATM with expensive revolving credit. This one feels great until like Albert Brooks you find your wife at the blackjack table."(snip)
(snip)"Here’s the same store sales report, and I will rest my case, and ask the question, taking just the chart of JC Penny. Does this look like a chart you’d want to buy? JCP same store sales reported down 4.7%, versus an expected drop of 0.8%. (snip)
From this story:
With more than half of retailers reporting to Thomson Financial, 79% of them missed expectations for same-store sales, the industry’s benchmark for growth measured by receipts rung up at stores open longer than a year.
The dog ate the homework spin:
Thomson Financial’s Jharonne Martis warned investors not to take the month’s results to heart, urging them instead to combine March and April - what some analysts call “Mapril” — for a clearer picture of how consumers are spending.
Only problem with that one is that March was mediocre, with only a few standouts, but mostly mid single digit increases despite the extra week of Easter shopping. Here’s more color on just how badly most of these stores missed.
-WMT results were far worse than expected, coming in lower by 3.5% compared with the minus-1.1% expected at Thomson Financial. The biggest culprit was the Wal-Mart stores, which posted a 4.6% decline rather than the 1.1% drop expected while Sam’s Clubs saw its same-store sales climb 2.5%, slightly ahead of the 2.4% increase forecast.
- AEO was forecast to ring up a 1.3% gain in same-stores sales. Instead, the teen-wear retailer turned in an eye-popping 10% drop in comparable-store sales, blaming all the expected factors of weather, calendar shifts and comparisons.
- PSUN where same-store sales dropped 16.5%, far deeper than the minus 6.5% expected at Thomson Financial.
- LTD, parent of Limited, Express, Victoria’s Secret, and Bath & Body Works also disappointed investors by reporting that same-store sales fell 1% rather than the 1% gain forecast.
- BEBE, the trendy apparel and accessories retailer for young women. Its same-store sales fell 6.5% instead of the 6.2% decline projected.
- CHS, a fashionable apparel and accessories retailer for older women, also let down investors with a 7.3% decline in comparable-store sales vs. the 0.6% dip anticipated.
-Even Nordstrom, which usually surprises to the upside, said its sales were a bit more sluggish than expected. Sales at stores open longer than a year climbed 3.1%, but that was short of the 4.2% increase expected.
-Then there’s Hot Topic down 9.1%.
- Kohl’s down 10.5% versus minus 6.6% expected.
-American Eagle down 10%, versus a gain of 1.3% expected by analysts.
-Target down 6.1%.
- ANN down 12.8%, versus 4.0% expected by the dead fish analyst community.
- ANF, drop was 15%, the dead dish were looking for down 4.7% and only missed this one by about 10%.
Elsewhere on the Bully Wannabee watch, Whole Foods bombs on a weaker earnings report. Obviously these retailers have huge expectations built in, and dead fish have just ignored the economics and red flags."(snip)
OK, who has managed to figure out which class or retailers are the exception ( hint - Nordstrom is on the edge with slightly positive sales growth) ?




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