It’s payroll day again, which means we get to watch the straight-line march of the Establishment Survey “confirm” whatever the observer wishes to infer because a straight line is both uninteresting and mostly not useful. This happens, of course, regardless of what other parts of the survey or other surveys show. The most prominent disagreement continues to be with the [...]
Now that we have results for both Wal-Mart and Target, the retail, and thus consumer, picture has been largely filled out. Both companies continue to blame other factors (both cold; Target credit card theft) while dancing around with soft presentations of minor allusions to struggling consumers. At what point do “struggling consumers” begin to register as something more than a [...]
Wal-Mart is not just the world’s largest retailer, it employs some 2 million workers and handles an estimated 8 cents of every dollar spent by consumers. Ninety percent of all Americans live within 15 minutes (average) of a Wal-Mart and the retailer averages better than 100 million customers per week. That racks up to about $36 million in sales per [...]
There is a growing incongruence in the mainstream narrative as it relates to the rather sunny and sanguine dispositions of current economic expectations. By now you have heard that 2014 is set to be “the year”, for once finally breaking free of all those mysterious “headwinds” that have cast asunder all the best laid plans to this point. This is [...]
In the fourth quarter of 2007, WalMart became the first retailer in history to surpass $100 billion in quarterly sales. It was an impressive feat despite growing unease over what were then considered (by the vast majority of economists) unrelated matters of the financial economy (subprime was “contained”). Overall, sales had grown 8.3% (including membership fees to Sam’s Club), though [...]
Holiday sales estimates are already being trimmed, with the current year set to be the weakest since the Great Recession. Of course, it matters whether or not you have access to asset inflation, as retailers for the more affluent are expecting better results. Reuters spells it out succinctly, “As result, low-income Americans will again have a less-merry season than affluent [...]
We finally get a peek at the pre-shutdown consumer segment from the delayed retail sales report. There was a temporary bounce from the horrible start to the year through July, but sales have cooled off precipitously right in time for the back-to-school season. Now we know why WalMart was rumored to have been so concerned about its inventory heading into [...]
Just a day after discussing how retailers were going to be “smart” this holiday season, Bloomberg reports that WalMart is getting even “smarter”. “Wal-Mart dropped 1.6 percent after the retailer told suppliers its [sic] is cutting orders this quarter and next to address rising inventories.” The article spends a lot of effort trying to tie the WalMart move to “uncertainty” [...]
I suppose there is more than one way to interpret K-Mart’s decision to air the first Christmas ad 105 days before the actual holiday, but to most sane people it was a sign of creeping pessimism. Retailers have already been behind in their sales expectations for much of the first half of the year, despite relatively uniform optimism at the [...]
Walmart disappointed with its earnings announcement for Q2 2013. The string of retailer disappointments (added to Kohl’s and Macy’s) contradicts the narrative of the strengthening consumer. It also runs contrary to recent readings on consumer confidence (which in the age of QE asset inflation may not be registering what economists believe it measures). The important points from Walmart were disappointing [...]
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