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’Black Friday to the rescue — but at what cost?
US equity markets are nearly as excited about Black Friday as these shoppers:
Retail surveys all point to above-expectations spending over the so-called “first weekend of the Holidays”, which begins with Black Friday,
Are ETFs responsible for short-covering rallies?
In a Ponzi scheme, investors get duped into thinking their money has been invested in a profit-generating investment, when in reality their investment doesn’t actually exist.
Rather than being invested,
What to do with the PPI pay-out
Did you know? 0.4 per cent of British consumer spending could be coming from the banks this year.
To figure out why, all you have to do is look at the recently announced pay-outs on the Payment Protection Insurance sold by UK banks.
Fresh woe from Britain’s high street
Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the UK retail sector…
… along comes another shocking trading statement.
The price action in Home Retail Group on Thursday morning:
Ouch.
A whitemare on Britain’s high streets
The Arctic conditions gripping the UK have claimed their first stock market victim.
Step forward Alexon Group, the retailer that trades under such brands as Ann Harvey and Kaliko:
On Tuesday morning,
Worried of Webvan
To: michael.grade@ocado.com
Re: Ocado listing
Hello again Michael,
You never call, and you never write – despite our having had lots of questions about your business before its flotation in July.
The weather outside is frightful…
(…but the natgas-fire is so delightful.)
They’re calling it the ‘storm of the decade’ in the United States.
The winter tempest that swept through the East Coast over the weekend, bringing heavy snowstorms and sub-zero temperatures,
US shoppers spent less over Black Friday weekend
Consumers spent significantly less per person at the start of the holiday season this weekend, dimming hopes for a retail comeback that would help propel the economy early in 2010, Reuters reported. The lacklustre spending could pressure retail stocks on Monday,
Wal-Mart’s Q3 earnings top consensus, but sales figures disappoint
Wal-Mart posted better-than-expected headline results on Wednesday, but its shares slipped 1 per cent in pre-market trade as investors reacted to a disappointing benchmark sales metric.
The retailer said profit for the third quarter increased 3.2 per cent to $3.2bn,
Wal-Mart’s aggressive recession strategy (UPDATED)
US readers will likely know that Wal-Mart has been actively promoting itself as the recession warrior’s grocer with a series of print and television ads promoting its discounted prices on items ranging from breakfast cereal to books to coffins (we are not making this up).
Outlook for US consumer-facing sectors still poor, S&P says
It looks like US consumers’ thriftiness really will wreck Christmas, as far as US retailers and restaurateurs – and Standard & Poor’s – are concerned.
In a report on Tuesday, the rating agency said the consumer products,
The end of Kobe beef burgers, or how thrift stole Christmas
Frugal is the new black, according to everyone from David Rosenberg to the US consumer and the beleaguered retailers.
Consider the following piece, which appeared in the New York Times on Friday:
In the retail business,
John Lewis aka Goldilocks
The latest weekly John Lewis sales figures show it was just too hot for shopping. Sales in the week to May 30th fell by 8.2 per cent for the high street retailer.
As the company reported on Friday:
Exceptionally warm weather impacts on weekend footfall
Following on from such a strong run of sales during the first three weeks of May,
Marketing before market share: a lesson for A&F
As the recession in the United States drags on, more and more companies are considering cutting prices in a bid to attract cash-strapped consumers. However, lowering prices may hurt the perception of a brand – particularly in the luxury sector – and squeeze margins,
March US PPI falls an unexpected 1.2 per cent
News just in for the deflation mongers out there: the US Producer Price Index fell an unexpected 1.2 per cent in March — the sharpest decline in three months. The market had been expecting a flat number.
A different kind of model
Funny things happen when fashion meets financial crisis.
To wit, meet Lithuanian model Auguste Abeliunaite. She walked the Jil Sander runway in Milan on Friday with tears streaming down her face — the only model to do so (else we would think it part of the show).
Does Tesco have a pricing problem?
‘Britain’s biggest discounter’ has had a bit of a market share issue of late.
To wit, this chart from JPM analysts Jaime Vazquez, Alastair Johnson and Bianca Brebnor.
The analysts believe the loss of market share is down to a pricing problem at the UK grocer — and they’ve gone on a bit of a field trip to Tescos around the capital to prove it,
Bank of England dresses for success
As if working at the BoE isn’t depressing enough, its female employees are now being told how to dress. For success, no less. Really.
The central bank reportedly held a “Dress for Success” day earlier this week,
Luxury (not) for the masses
So, it seems Tiffany’s and Abercrombie & Fitch, two of the most stubborn retailers in refusing to lower their prices during a global recession, have got their comeuppance.
Tiffany’s reported yesterday that holiday sales fell a whopping 21 per cent,
Trading down to Primark
How’s this for outperformance? Revenues at Associated British Foods were up 21 per cent in the 16 weeks to January 3rd, up 15 per cent at constant exchange rates.
The UK-listed food producer, which also owns discount retailer Primark,
Recession at Tiffany’s
Sharp on the heels of Wednesday’s disastrous US December retail numbers (plunging twice as much as expected) come sales figures from jewellery-maker Tiffany. Prognosis? Ouch ouch ouch.
Apparently demand for diamonds isn’t holding up well at all.
The socialist shopper
Luxury shopping has become something of a disgraced activity of late. It doesn’t look good to splash £1,000 on a slouchy bag when your average plebian is coping with basic mortgage payments.
Hence we’ve seen luxury online retailer Net-a-Porter offering to mail purchases in non-descript brown packaging instead of their usual glossy black be-ribboned bags.
Best ever Christmas for Sainsbury’s
Retail gloom? What retail gloom?!
Sainsbury’s has just recorded its best Christmas trading period ever. The supermarket’s highlights include:
• Total sales for third quarter up 4.8 per cent (5.3 per cent excluding fuel)
• Like-for-like sales for third quarter up 3.9 per cent (4.5 per cent excluding fuel)
• Continued growth in customer numbers:
Highstreet crunchiness
The all-important Christmas sales figures are starting to come through for the UK retailers with both Debenhams and Next reporting on Tuesday morning.
Debt-laden Debenhams posted a 3.5 per cent drop in underlying sales for the 18 weeks to Jan 3,
A spot of bother
Whittard of Chelsea, the 122-year old purveyor of teas, is said this morning to be teetering on the brink of administration.
From the BBC:
The Whittard of Chelsea chain of shops is understood to be close to calling in administrators after falling into financial difficulty.
Land of fairweather shoppers
More bad news for the UK highstreet in the form of the British Retail Consortium’s latest trade figures. The industry body reports its first-ever consecutive two-month fall in sales in November.
According to the BRC:UK retail sales values fell 2.6% on a like-for-like basis,
Germans have Christmas spirit
They are the most optimistic about spending this holiday season, according to UBS’s first Christmas consumer survey.
Deutschland leaps ahead of the Christmas consumer stakes with 50 per cent of Germans polled planning to spend about the same amount this year.
Beware the haberdashery comeback
Uh oh. The numbers out of John Lewis keep getting worse — despite the store’s famous claim that it has never knowingly been undersold.
With competitors across the country furiously discounting ahead of Christmas,
Bleak Friday
Some chains will be opening as early as 4am with “doorbuster” special offers and “early bird” promotions. But, as ever, it will be hard to assess the likely strength of the rest of the holiday shopping season from how busy the shops are on Black Friday – so called because it was once the day when retailers would see their accounts for the year turn positive.
Luxury Fatigue
FT Alphaville, sadly, does not yet suffer from this new condition. We’re told, however, that it’s of growing concern — particularly to the LVMHs and Burberries of the world, who depend on the appetite of wealthy fashionistas for the bulk of their sales.