FeedPosted Nov 6th 2009 11:40AM by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed)
Filed under: Wal-Mart (WMT), Target Corp. (TGT), Costco Wholesale (COST), Gap Inc (GPS), Nordstrom, Inc (JWN)
There's a chill in the air and a slight up-tick in confidence. Holiday discounts are coming a bit earlier, too. For retailers, this has been a great combination, leading to the second consecutive month in which retail sales increased.
This follows more than a year of drops. Consumers aren't going crazy, but they are loosening their wallets a little bit. Consumer spending accounts for 70% of the U.S. economy, and the coming holiday season is where the action is -- for the retail sector and, consequently, for everyone else.
Continue reading Retail sales: Signs of life, but not yet a rising tide
Posted Jun 13th 2009 9:00AM by Jamie Dlugosch (RSS feed)
Filed under: Whole Foods Market (WFMI), Nordstrom, Inc (JWN), Obama Picks
We all know the impact that celebrities have on businesses. One of the most obvious instances of this phenomenon comes from the Oprah Winfrey Show. For example, when a title makes it into her book club, millions of loyal followers immediately take action, and sales follow.
These days, Michelle Obama is giving Oprah a run for her money. The First Lady is being closely watched by millions, and she too has a loyal following. She also appears to have a fashion sense that resonates with consumers around the globe. We all saw the number of stories and speculation about her gown during the inauguration.
Continue reading Move over Oprah -- Michelle Obama's got the touch
Posted May 28th 2009 11:20AM by Eric Buscemi (RSS feed)
Filed under: Analyst reports, Analyst upgrades and downgrades, Estee Lauder (EL), Caterpillar (CAT), Abercrombie and Fitch (ANF), Electronic Arts (ERTS), Starwood Hotels Worldwide (HOT), Harley-Davidson (HOG), Analyst initiations, Nordstrom, Inc (JWN), SanDisk Corp (SNDK)
Analyst upgrades:
- Goldman upgraded SanDisk (NASDAQ: SNDK) to Buy from Neutral and raised their target to $22 from $16 citing the renegotiated royalty agreement with Samsung.
- Goldman also upgraded Starwood Hotels (NYSE: HOT) to Buy from Sell and raised their target to $27 from $11 citing strong operating leverage as RevPAR recovers.
- KeyBanc upgraded Werner Enterprises (NASDAQ: WERN) to Hold from Underweight citing a recent improvement in freight demand.
- J.C. Penney (NYSE: JCP) was upgraded to buy from Underperform at Banc of America/Merrill.
- Savvis (NASDAQ: SVVS) was raised to Outperform from Perform at Oppenheimer.
- Sanofi-Aventis (NYSE: SNY) was upgraded at Citigroup to Buy from Hold.
Continue reading Analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations: SNDK, HOT, CAT, HOG, ANF, ERTS ...
Posted May 16th 2009 9:40AM by Trey Thoelcke (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings reports, Wal-Mart (WMT), International Business Machines (IBM), Sony Corp ADR (SNE), Penney (J.C.) (JCP), Blockbuster Inc 'A' (BBI), Applied Materials (AMAT), Whole Foods Market (WFMI), Kohl's Corp (KSS), Abercrombie and Fitch (ANF), Nordstrom, Inc (JWN), Liz Claiborne (LIZ), MBIA Inc (MBI), World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE)
Here are some highlights from this past week's earnings coverage from BloggingStocks:
Continue reading Earnings highlights: Walmart, JCPenney, Freddie Mac, Playboy, Whole Foods and more
Posted May 15th 2009 12:30PM by Brent Archer (RSS feed)
Filed under: Major movement, Earnings reports, Good news, Options, Technical Analysis, Nordstrom, Inc (JWN)
Nordstrom (NYSE: JWN - option chain) shares are rising today after the company reported earnings last night, posting a first-quarter profit of $81 million, or 37 cents per share.
Excluding one-time items, JWN earned 31 cents per share, topping analysts' forecasts of 26 cents per share. If you think that the stock won't fall by too much in the coming months, then now could be a good time to look at a bullish hedged trade on JWN.
JWN opened this morning at $21.64. So far today the stock has hit a low of $21.41 and a high of $23.05. As of 11:40, JWN is trading at $22.68 up 1.73 (8.3%). The chart for JWN looks bearish and S&P gives JWN a negative 2 STARS (out of 5) sell ranking.
Continue reading Nordstrom (JWN) Q1 earnings beat estimates
Posted Apr 20th 2009 10:30AM by Jim Cramer (RSS feed)
Filed under: PepsiCo (PEP), Ford Motor (F), General Motors (GM), Market matters, Walgreen Co (WAG), Citigroup Inc. (C), Target Corp. (TGT), Brinker Intl (EAT), Penney (J.C.) (JCP), Abbott Laboratories (ABT), American Express (AXP), AutoNation Inc (AN), AutoZone Inc (AZO), Centex Corp (CTX), Charles Schwab Corp (SCHW), Kellogg Co (K), Hershey Co (HSY), Sears Holdings (SHLD), CVS Corp (CVS), Gap Inc (GPS), General Mills (GIS), Procter and Gamble (PG), Yum Brands (YUM), Kohl's Corp (KSS), Johnson Controls (JCI), Gilead Sciences (GILD), Nordstrom, Inc (JWN), Unilever ADR (UL), Jones Apparel Group (JNY), Cramer on BloggingStocks, Recession, E*TRADE (ETFC)
TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer is seeing signs of a coming boom, but he's still being cautious here. If you had to define the early cycle, if you had to outline what stocks should be soaring coming out of a recession into a boom and which ones should be faltering, you would have to say the action in this market in the last month is the quintessential behavioral pattern.
What are the components of the early cycle? First, it's the homebuilders. As is typical coming out of a recession, the stocks precede the bottom of housing. That's exactly what's happening with the lowest permits and highest affordability and best mortgage rates and massive inventory. Everywhere, except on Wall Street reporting, the bottom is bursting out. When you read the lead story in the Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer, and it is all about the thousands of prospective homebuyers heading south to pick up condos and homes for half of what they were worth two years ago -- or even less -- and you know that virtually no one has broken ground in the Sunshine State in a year, you can bet that the bottom's actually behind us. This housing market has wiped out all but the most stable private builders and even the public ones are merging as we know from
Pulte (NYSE:
PHM) (
Cramer's Take) and
Centex (NYSE:
CTX) (
Cramer's Take). So, in the next cycle, you can see some profitability developing year over year even though the new homes don't have much margin because the foreclosed homes next door are going for a song. And don't believe this won't change the dynamic of future foreclosures. In most areas, rent is higher than the interest on mortgages, so you will find that second or third job needed to stay in your home. The incentive structure's radically different than a year ago.
Continue reading Cramer on BloggingStocks: The seductive pull of the early cycle
Posted Feb 28th 2009 4:40PM by Trey Thoelcke (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings reports, Home Depot (HD), Target Corp. (TGT), Campbell Soup (CPB), Safeway Inc (SWY), Sears Holdings (SHLD), Kohl's Corp (KSS), Nordstrom, Inc (JWN), Garmin Ltd (GRMN), Marvel Entertainment (MVL)
Here are some highlights from this past week's earnings coverage from BloggingStocks:
Continue reading Earnings highlights: Campbell, Sears, Home Depot, Nordstrom, Marvel and more
Posted Feb 24th 2009 12:50PM by Brent Archer (RSS feed)
Filed under: Major movement, Earnings reports, Good news, Options, Technical Analysis, Nordstrom, Inc (JWN)
Nordstrom (NYSE:
JWN -
option chain) shares are sharply higher today after
the company reported a fourth-quarter profit of $68 million, or 31 cents per share, beating analysts' estimates of 30 cents per share. This earnings report shows slowing sales like almost all retailers, but management claims it is keeping inventories at reasonable levels and controlling costs. It seems to me that the upper crust of retailers are hanging in better than the mid-range stores. If you think that the stock won't fall by too much in the coming months, then now could be a good time to look at a bullish hedged trade on JWN.
JWN opened this morning at $12.55. So far today the stock has hit a low of $12.41 and a high of $13.38. As of 11:40, JWN is trading at $12.86, up 1.53 (13.5%). The chart for JWN looks bearish and
S&P gives JWN a negative 2 STARS (out of 5) sell ranking.
Continue reading Nordstrom (JWN) lifted on decent Q4 earnings
Posted Dec 22nd 2008 2:00PM by Bryan Perry (RSS feed)
Filed under: Wal-Mart (WMT), Newsletters, Sony Corp ADR (SNE), , Tiffany and Co (TIF), Sears Holdings (SHLD), Coach Inc (COH), Costco Wholesale (COST), Abercrombie and Fitch (ANF), Under Armour'A' (UA), Nordstrom, Inc (JWN), Urban Outfitters (URBN), Stocks to Sell
If you made a bet on the specialty retailers leading up to the first $600 taxpayer rebate stimulus package, you got hammered.
Talk about a government plan backfiring big time.
That $300 billion in checks that fell out of the sky from government helicopters back in the March to May timeframe didn't find its way to the malls at all.
Instead, people paid down credit card debt, and tuition, medical and other bills, leaving little for spending on non-essentials.
The result was a litany of store closings nationwide, with several old-line, brand-name retailers going out of business.
It's game over for names like Circuit City (OTC: CCTYQ), Cache (NASDAQ: CACH), Talbots (NYSE: TLB), J. Jill, Wickes Furniture, Levitz, Bombay, Linens 'n Things, Movie Gallery, Wilson Leather, KB Toys and The Sharper Image.
Traders that leveraged into darling names, like hedge fund idol Eddie Lampert's Sears Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ: SHLD), got smoked. Shares of SHLD were trading at $105 when the checks when out. Today the stock is around $40.
Even Costco (NASDAQ: COST) -- the obvious slam dunk, aside from Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) -- got slammed, falling from $75 to $45 following the so-called stimulus package.
Continue reading 2008 Trades Gone Bad #1: Going long the specialty retailers
Posted Dec 8th 2008 3:50PM by Michael Shulman (RSS feed)
Filed under: Bad news, Apple Inc (AAPL), Wal-Mart (WMT), General Motors (GM), Newsletters, Target Corp. (TGT), Sears Holdings (SHLD), Nordstrom, Inc (JWN), Calif Pizza Kitchen (CPKI), Stocks to Sell, Recession
The chain that once dubbed itself "where America shops" is increasingly a place shoppers avoid. Despite its much-publicized recovery efforts, investors should consider steering clear, too.
Sears Holdings Corporation (NYSE:
SHLD) has been in the news a great deal lately, announcing awful sales results and planning yet another stock buyback to prop up its flailing price.
The recent store changes have not worked, and neither will the financial engineering. This company is on its way down, and a visit to a local store showed me why.
Sears used to be the General Motors (NYSE: GM) of retailers -- an apt analogy when both were all-American giants, and just as apt today as both struggle. Sears had completely lost its way when vulture investor, Eddie Lampert, bought the company in late 2004 and combined it with Kmart. Wall Street analysts went nuts, pushing the stock price to $192 a share.
Today, Wall Street has lowered that price to near $40.
Continue reading Sears: The GM of retailers
Posted Nov 15th 2008 11:40AM by Trey Thoelcke (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings reports, Google (GOOG), Wal-Mart (WMT), Intel (INTC), Sirius Satellite Radio (SIRI), Applied Materials (AMAT), Procter and Gamble (PG), Kohl's Corp (KSS), Abercrombie and Fitch (ANF), Cypress Semiconductor (CY), Nordstrom, Inc (JWN), Crocs Inc (CROX), Blackstone Group L.P (BX)
Here are some highlights from this past week's earnings coverage from BloggingStocks:
Continue reading Earnings highlights: Walmart, Google, Intel, P&G, Sirius, Blackstone and others
Posted Nov 14th 2008 8:16AM by Melly Alazraki (RSS feed)
Filed under: Before the bell, Earnings reports, Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Apple Inc (AAPL), Ford Motor (F), General Motors (GM), Citigroup Inc. (C), Sprint Nextel Corp (S), Penney (J.C.) (JCP), Agilent Technologies (A), Kohl's Corp (KSS), Abercrombie and Fitch (ANF), Nordstrom, Inc (JWN)
Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) is planning to
cut at least 10,000 jobs in its investment bank and other divisions throughout the world, the
Wall Street Journal reported its sources revealed. Managers were instructed to slash their budgets for employee compensation by at least 25%. Meanwhile, CEO Vikram
Pandit bought up to 750,000 shares of the company
at prices between $8.92 and $9.45 according to SEC filings. Another exec bought 250,000 shares as Citi's stock price fell to lows not seen since the mid-1990s. Citi shares were up 2% in premarket trading (8:03 am). Citi opened much higher, and even traded over $10, but as the market declines so do Citi shares tame their jump. Around 10:10 Citi shares were 3% higher.
Nordstrom Inc. (NYSE: JWN) said Thursday that its
third-quarter profit fell by 57% as its same-store-sales declined. It slashed its full-year outlook below analyst expectations. JWN stock was down over 5% in after-hours trading. JWN shares had a volatile half an hour after the open. Around 10:10 they were half a percent higher.
Kohl's Corp. (NYSE: KSS) said
profit fell for the fifth quarter in a row, dropping 17%, and reduced its annual profit forecast. KSS shares were down over 4% in after-hours trading. KSS shares were 2.4% higher around 10:12.
- Abercrombie & Fitch Co. (NYSE: ANF) reported lower quarterly profit, but beat estimates. It also cut its full-year outlook. ANF shares were down 7.4% in premarket trading (8:45 am). ANF shares traded over 4% lower at 10:12.
- J.C. Penney (NYSE: JCP) also reported lower quarterly profit -- fell by nearly 53% -- but beat estimates by a penny. Sales fell 8.7% in the quarter. JCP gave full year guidance much lower than analysts' expectations. Shares were down 4.6% in premarket trading (8:33 am). JCP traded 2.4% lower 45 minutes after the open.
- Agilent Technologies (NYSE: A) -- keeping the same theme, Agilent [reported higher profit], managed to beat estimates but gave outlook below expectations. Shares were 2% lower in premarket trading (8:23 am). Agilent shares traded 3.3% higher 45 minutes after the open.
Continue reading Stocks in the news: C, JWN, KSS, JCP, MSFT, GM, MGM, S, GOOG (update)
Posted Nov 7th 2008 9:24AM by Allan Halprin (RSS feed)
Filed under: Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo! (YHOO), Wal-Mart (WMT), Coca-Cola (KO), PepsiCo (PEP), Ford Motor (F), Exxon Mobil (XOM), McDonald's (MCD), Walt Disney (DIS), Johnson and Johnson (JNJ), Sprint Nextel Corp (S), Money and Finance Today, Abbott Laboratories (ABT), AFLAC Inc (AFL), Family Dollar Stores (FDO), Procter and Gamble (PG), Kimberly-Clark (KMB), Mattel, Inc (MAT), Nordstrom, Inc (JWN)
In the News:
Dividend Stocks: The S&P EliteThese 28 companies have boosted their payouts in each of the past 25 years with top S&P STARS rankings. They include Abbott Labs, Aflac, Coca-Cola, ExxonMobil, Family Dollar, J&J, Kimberly-Clark, McDonalds, Pepsi, P&G, 3M, Wal-Mart and more.
http://www.businessweek.com/investor/content/nov2008/pi2008116_893947.htm
Tax Changes Coming, But When?Taxpayers' bills will very likely change under President-elect Barack Obama's administration, but don't hold your breath for major tax changes as soon as he takes office. Here is what you can expect and when.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Obamas-plans-may-delayed-your/story.aspx?guid=%7B06D020A6%2D9797%2D4B89%2DB48C%2D6037BDA934FD%7D
Continue reading Dividend stocks; the S&P elite, when will tax changes come?, and Obama mementos a good investment? - Today in Money 11/7
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