Bill Dreher
Bill Dreher
appears beginning christmas clearly concerned consumer extremely holiday impact scale type
The announcement by Neiman Marcus...makes us as concerned as we have ever been that this Christmas will be extremely lackluster. It appears now the high-end consumer is beginning to scale back their purchases, which does not bode well for the holiday season. This type of thing is clearly going to have an impact on other high-end retailers.
appears form holiday season
The shopper appears to be in mid-season form with the holiday season just having started.
appeared bang consumer expecting flooded robust sales season september
The back-to-school season started with a bang and we're expecting robust sales in September because the consumer appeared to be flooded with cash.
appear chicken consumer fourth game holding improve initial looking margins profit profits quarter retailers
In the game of chicken between retailers and consumers, with one looking to improve profit margins and the other holding out for discounts, it would appear that the consumer blinked. The initial read on the fourth quarter is that profits should come in better than anticipated.
cents number pull telling
They're telling us to pull our number down by 4 cents (per share).
acquiring card companies continues cost credit department gross improved improving lowering margin problems retailers seeing stores strong struggle target turnaround
The companies that are seeing strong gross margin improvements are getting it not from improving their merchandising mix, but from improved buying. Retailers like Wal-Mart and Target are lowering their cost of acquiring products. Sears on the other hand, continues to struggle with the turnaround of its department stores and problems with its credit card unit.
chasing losing money point sales
There's no point in chasing sales if you're losing money on those sales.
intent last learned lessons repeating year
They've learned the lessons from last year and are intent upon not repeating the same mistakes.
ballpark far sales shows
It shows they're in the ballpark as far as sales go.
alan bad confidence convinced dealing deceitful department feeling head hiding investor restore sounds tackling
He (Lacy) was dealing with a deceitful department head who sounds like he was hiding some bad news, ... Our feeling is Alan Lacy is being very forthcoming and straightforward with the problems, and is tackling them very aggressively. But we're not convinced that's going to be enough to immediately restore investor confidence in shares.
bargains best consumers game held holiday last mad minute result retailers rush spirit unknown until waited week
Consumers were not in the holiday spirit up until the last week of the holiday season, when there was a mad rush for the store. And the big unknown is the result of that game of chicken, where shoppers waited until the last minute to get the best bargains and retailers held off.
battery build clear company efforts itself management national sale step strengthen tire unit
It's clear that the company is redoubling efforts to strengthen itself and build a competitive advantage. Anything that distracts the management from doing just that will be de-emphasized. The sale of its National Tire and Battery unit is a step in that direction.
brutal department stores throwing
As we get through the season, department stores are going to be brutal in throwing merchandise back to vendors.
admittedly admitting cloudy critical holiday investors might second though visibility
They are admitting they have very cloudy visibility on the very critical holiday season. What might be more significant to investors is that even though they had an admittedly superb second quarter, where are we going from here?