COST posts
FeedPosted Nov 7th 2009 11:20AM by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed)
Filed under: Costco Wholesale (COST), Gap Inc (GPS), Federal Reserve, Recession
Consumer borrowing fell for the eighth straight month in September. This record-setting streak is due largely to tightening by lenders, unemployment and the conservative preference to pay down debt rather than spend. This widespread fit of fiscal responsibility, economists fret, could prevent a recovery from taking root, since consumer spending is responsible for 70% of the U.S. economy. This conventional thinking, of course, overlooks the fact that an eventual increase in spending that isn't fueled by consumer spending will yield a recovery that's more likely to last.
According to the Federal Reserve, borrowing fell at an annual rate of $14.8 billion in September -- it's biggest drop since July and much larger than the $10 billion predicted by economists. The behavior is exactly what you'd find in people worried about losing their jobs or focused on rebuilding safety funds and investment portfolios. Those who want to borrow are finding banks won't be complicit this time, as they clamp down on lending practices.
Continue reading Consumer spending falls victim to debt repayment
Posted 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 Oct 30th 2009 2:40PM by David Schepp (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings reports, Forecasts, Products and services, Consumer experience, Wal-Mart (WMT), Netflix, Inc. (NFLX), Target Corp. (TGT), Hershey Co (HSY), Costco Wholesale (COST), Hormel Foods (HRL), Kraft Foods'A' (KFT), DJIA, Stocks to Buy, Recession

Halloween, though not the blockbuster holiday that Christmas is, still results in some additional spending on the part of consumers as they stock up on candy and costumes, and maybe take in a scary movie or two. With those treats in mind here are some stocks that may give investors sweet dreams -- and hopefully not nightmares.
As is well known, candy is all the rage at Halloween, and among the largest candy stocks are
Hershey Co. (NYSE:
HSY) and
Cadbury PLC (NYSE:
CBY). Last week, Hershey reported third-quarter earnings rose 30% despite weaker volumes affected by higher prices for its sweets. Last year's numbers also included special charges. Still the company said it expects full-year earnings to be
ahead of Wall Street forecasts. In 2010, the Pennsylvania company said it expects earnings excluding items to rise 6% to 8%. The stock has a forward-looking price-to-earnings ratio of 16 and a current dividend yield of 3.1%.
Continue reading Halloween stocks offer investors a chance at financial treats
Posted Oct 29th 2009 4:15PM by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed)
Filed under: Wal-Mart (WMT), Costco Wholesale (COST)
People need to eat, and Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) sells food. People need to cover themselves, and Wal-Mart sells apparel. You get the idea – the biggest needs may be thin-margin, and their all sure things. Wal-Mart plays in the inevitable, which makes its latest market entry a little less surprising than you might think. Wal-Mart is pushing caskets and urns – depending on how you want your remains preserved. What is a bit shocking, however, is that the brick-and-mortar player is selling its death gear online.
Wal-Mart is using its low price strategy to beat funeral homes, which have seemingly forever been the biggest sales channel for caskets. Prices start at $999 for the low end models and go up to the Sienna Bronze Casket at $3,199. Except for this last one, all models sell for under $2,000 ... and all product ships within 48 hours. The funeral homes are over a barrel on this one, since federal law requires them to accept third-party caskets.
Wal-Mart is supplied by Star Legacy Funeral Network, and both are apparently happy with the first week's sales.
The Bentonville-based retail giant is not the first to get into the gloomy business of bodies. Discount retailer Costco (NASDAQ: COST) is already in the online casket business.
Posted Oct 13th 2009 10:50AM by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed)
Filed under: Industry, Microsoft (MSFT), Dell (DELL), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Best Buy (BBY), Costco Wholesale (COST)
Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) new operating system, Windows 7, is set to be released on October 22, 2009, but it's unlikely to have an impact on PC prices. So, if you're feeling the urge to rush out and buy a new box, try to hold out until the end of the month. You'll get a bit more life out of it.
Fortunately, PC prices aren't expected to get much lower, so the entire supply chain -- from chips to software -- has nowhere to go but up. The effect, though, has been to put some serious pressure on manufacturers and retailers to keep from screwing up the release.
Continue reading Inventories add pressure to Windows 7 release
Posted Oct 10th 2009 12:10PM by Trey Thoelcke (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings reports, Coca-Cola (KO), PepsiCo (PEP), Alcoa Inc (AA), Clorox Co (CLX), Costco Wholesale (COST), Family Dollar Stores (FDO), Yum Brands (YUM), Marriott Intl'A' (MAR)
Continue reading Earnings highlights: Alcoa, Costco, Family Dollar, Marriott, PepsiCo, Yum! Brands ...
Posted Oct 7th 2009 4:20PM by Mark Fightmaster (RSS feed)
Filed under: Costco Wholesale (COST), Economic data, Financial Crisis

There is an article in
The Wall Street Journal caught my eye this lovely Tuesday morning, as Sara Murray took a look at how families
cut back on spending in 2008. According to the article, consumer prices increased nearly 4% when compared to 2007; but pre-tax income increased less than 1% - or $472 for an average family. Yes, the average American family made $472 more dollars in 2008 than it did in 2007. Breaking it down even further, the overall spending per consumer unit (which includes families, single people, or cohabitants) increased 1.7%, or $848, in 2008. This was the smallest spending increase since 2003. The biggest drop was in apparel spending (4.3%) while families spent 8.1% more on eating at home (which computes out to $279 per family).
Continue reading Families tried to reign in the spending last year
Posted Oct 7th 2009 2:20PM by Elizabeth Harrow (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings reports, Analyst reports, Good news, Costco Wholesale (COST), Options

Wall Street is cheering the latest earnings report from
Costco Wholesale Corporation (NASDAQ:
COST), with the shares adding more than 3% within the first hour of trading. This morning, as Tom Johansmeyer reported, the wholesale club reported a 6% slide in
fiscal fourth-quarter earnings, but the results nevertheless exceeded analysts' expectations.
In the wake of COST's report, analyst Brian Sozzi of Wall Street Strategies reiterated his Buy rating and $66 price target on the equity. "In our view, 4Q09 will go a long way in supporting a higher valuation for Costco," wrote Sozzi in a research note this morning. "The company has managed to control costs, drive traffic to its warehouses consistently throughout the economic downturn, paid $300 million in annual dividends in FY09 (payout ratio of 26.0% second to only Wal-Mart in the sector), and has catalysts on the horizon to showcase earnings power above currently modeled for consensus EPS."
Continue reading Costco Wholesale surges after topping 4Q expectations
Posted Oct 6th 2009 11:30AM by Steven Mallas (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings reports, Forecasts, Wal-Mart (WMT), Costco Wholesale (COST)
Costco Wholesale Corp. (NASDAQ: COST), the popular warehouse store that competes with BJ's Wholesale Club (NYSE: BJ) and Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT), will report Q4 earnings on Wednesday, October 7. How will the company do?
Don't look for growth, my friends. According to Earnings.com, estimates from Wall Street say that Costco will produce 77 cents per share in income. Unfortunately, that represents a 16% drop in the metric. Surprising? Maybe a little. After all, we're still suffering a bad economy, and you figure that people would want to cut costs by leveraging the bulk buying power of the Costco business model.
Continue reading Costco's fourth quarter: Will Wall Street be surprised?
Posted Oct 4th 2009 12:30PM by Trey Thoelcke (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings reports, Forecasts, PepsiCo (PEP), Alcoa Inc (AA), Family Dollar Stores (FDO), Yum Brands (YUM)
Alcoa Inc. (NYSE: AA) kicks off another earnings season this week, and analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters are looking for another net loss for the third quarter. Can we take that as a sign of things to come, or as a bellwether for the economy? Well, barring a big downside surprise, this will be the third narrower quarterly loss for Alcoa. But while Alcoa beat estimates in July, it missed them in April. Alcoa's shares, on the other hand, are up 145.6% since the March low, which is well more than twice as much either the Dow or the S&P 500.
During its third quarter, New York-based Alcoa continued restructuring efforts, remained a part of the DJIA Sustainability Index, and declared a quarterly dividend. It is expected to report a net loss of $0.12 per share for the three months that ended in September. That compares to a profit of $0.37 in the same period of last year. Third-quarter revenue is forecast to have fallen 38.3% to $4.5 billion. Analysts so far expect to see a profit in the fourth quarter, but not for the full year. Alcoa has missed earnings expectations in three of the past four quarters. The long-term EPS growth forecast is 20.0%, again much better than the S&P 500. The First Call consensus recommendation is to hold AA; CNBC concurs that now is not the time to buy. At $12.82, shares are 30.0% higher than three months ago, but 33.4% lower than a year ago.
Continue reading The week in preview: Another earnings season begins: Alcoa, PepsiCo, Monsanto ...
Posted Sep 26th 2009 1:10PM by Trey Thoelcke (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings reports, Automatic Data Proc (ADP), AutoZone Inc (AZO), Bed Bath and Beyond (BBBY), Carnival Corp (CCL), ConAgra Foods (CAG), Costco Wholesale (COST), Research in Motion (RIMM), General Mills (GIS), Lowe's Cos (LOW), Lennar Corp'A' (LEN), Red Hat Inc (RHT), Activision Inc (ATVI), United Technologies (UTX), Rite Aid Corp (RAD), Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan (POT)
Continue reading Earnings highlights: AutoZone, Carnival, CarMax, ConAgra, General Mills, RIM ...
Posted Sep 21st 2009 12:00PM by Eric Buscemi (RSS feed)
Filed under: Analyst reports, Analyst upgrades and downgrades, Apple Inc (AAPL), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Wal-Mart (WMT), Costco Wholesale (COST), Analyst initiations
Analyst upgrades:
- Roth Capital upgraded MicroStrategy (NASDAQ: MSTR) to Buy from Hold and raised its target to $90 from $70, citing encouraging Q2 results, new product cycle catalysts, a lift from Europe, and cost reductions.
- William Blair upgraded Costco (NASDAQ: COST) to Outperform from Market Perform after meeting with management as it believes sales and earnings could beat expectations over the next year.
- Credit Suisse upgraded Novellus (NASDAQ: NVLS) to Outperform from Neutral and raised its target to $29 from $23. The firm cites higher Samsung capex forecast, high leverage, and low expectations.
- Home Properties (NYSE: HME) and Equity Residential (NYSE: EQR) were upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at FBC Capital, while Douglas Emmett (NYSE: DEI) and Duke Realty (NYSE: DRE) were raised to Market Perform from Underperform.
- Agilent (NYSE: A) was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Barclays.
- Cytec Industries (NYSE: CYT) was upgraded to Buy from Hold at KeyBanc.
Continue reading Analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations: AAPL, COST, HPQ, JACK, MOS, NVLS, WMT ...
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