The world has not been swayed by the coy laugh of organic vegetables, the winsome eyes of local produce, the sparkling personality of grass-fed beef. When money's tight, the world goes to McDonald's for a dollar burger, and maybe a splurge on Southern-style chicken, an opportunity to win big -- or small, that next package of French fries has to come from somewhere -- with the chain's traditional 'Monopoly' game. Same-store sales were up 8.2% worldwide, with a respectable 5.3% increase in U.S. outlets.
McDonald's Corporation (NYSE: MCD) is still struggling to gain Wall Street approval for many of its recent moves, such as expanding hours and diving head-first into competition with Starbucks, rolling out espresso bars and fancy blended coffee drinks into its U.S. stores. Given some rough numbers from Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) out yesterday, it seems reasonable to wonder whether customers are avoiding the pricey pastries and coffee drinks at Starbucks and heading for the Dollar Menu at McDonald's.
During the month, Ford was able to sell a total of 155,172 light vehicles, which was 3.6% below July's figures of 160,990, which was the worst month for U.S. car sales in the past 16 years.
As expected, truck sales really took a beating last month for the company. With consumers dealing with record high gasoline prices, truck sales have been weak for some time now, and last month the company saw truck off by more than 32%. Its car sales fell by nearly 9%.
Office Depot is going to announce its second quarter numbers later this month, and investors got a better picture of just what to expect this morning after the company stated that it is now forecasting a 10% drop in its same-store sales for the quarter, citing the slowing American economy as the main reason.
The company also warned it expects the remainder of the year to remain difficult. While the retailer believes that sales trends should improve slightly, it is remaining pessimistic. Margins for the quarter, it says, have declined by about 200 basis points than what it had previously anticipated. Even before today's revision, the company had estimated about 200 to 250 basis point decline in its margins. Looking at the rest of the year, the company thinks that its margins should increase sequentially in both Q3 and Q4.
It probably should come as no surprise, but June was a tough month for automakers, and all signs are pointing to more troubles out on the horizon.
All but one major automaker saw their sales drop last month, with Honda Motor (NYSE: HMC) being the sole exception. For the month, Honda actually had a 1% year-over-year sales growth, which given the current market place was an exceptional feat.
So just how bad was June for the automakers? Pretty bad. During the month, combined auto sales fell to 1.19 million vehicles sold, a 266,000 decline from the same period last year. This just continues the trend that we have been seeing all year, amounting to roughly a 10% sales decline during the first half of the year.
U.S. business sales increased 1.4% in April - - the fastest pace in five months - - outpacing inventory growth and leaving businesses with small inventory levels, the U.S. Commerce Department announced Thursday.
Sales have increased 6.8% since April 2007.
Meanwhile, inventories increased a modest 0.5% in April, above the 0.3% consensus estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. Inventories have increased 5.4% since April 2007.
Further, the April business inventory-to-sales ratio declined to 1.25, with the typical company now possessing about a 38-day supply of goods in storage/inventory rooms. A year ago, in April 2007 the inventory-to-sales ratio was 1.27.
Day one of the two-day FDA Anesthetic/Life Support Drugs & Drug Safety/Risk Management Advisory Committees meeting: Purdue Pharma's NDA for Oxycontin.
Anadarko Petroleum (NYSE:APC) to report Q1 earnings; conference call Tuesday at 10:00am.
Tuesday, May 6
Day two of the two-day FDA Anesthetic/Life Support Drugs & Drug Safety/Risk Mgmt Advisory Committees meeting: Cephalon's (NASDAQ:CEPH) sNDA for Fentora.
Molson Coors (NYSE:TAP) to report Q1 earnings; conference call at 12:00pm.
Meanwhile, sales declined 1.1% in February 2008, the category's largest drop since January 2007.
Also, the inventory-to-sales ratio, an indicator of demand, increased to 1.28 in February 2008 from 1.26 in January 2008.
Economists, business executives, monetary officials and investors/traders monitor the inventories statistic because it can indicate business optimism and/or growing sales in the months ahead.
Further, the ratio of inventories-to-sales can help investors determine whether production demand will expand or contract in the near future -- a major factor in U.S. GDP growth.
Economic Analysis: A sub-par February 2008 business inventories report. The key statistic is the 1.28 inventory-to-sales ratio, which continues to increase. It's been rising since late 2007 -- and a sustained rise historically indicates, at minimum, economic sluggishness up ahead; at worst, a recession. For example, the ratio increased throughout 2001, prior to the start of the U.S.'s last recession. Conversely, it decreased throughout the ensuing, nearly 6-year economic expansion.
With people increasingly worried about the housing market and the credit crunch, it's not a surprise that many consumers are saving their money instead of buying furniture and investing in their houses. And given the current market conditions, it's no surprise that Swedish retail chain Ikea has seen its sales under pressure lately.
Anders Dahlvig, Ikea's chief executive, recently stated that the furniture retailer has been experiencing sales declines in some of its major markets, including Spain, Italy, and Germany. Moreover, the company expects the U.S. economic slowdown to affect other European markets as well. Both the global economic slowdown and higher energy and food prices have weighed on consumer confidence, contributing to the company's weak sales.
Even so, Ikea is not cancelling its expansion plans. The company believes that the weak market conditions lower not only its sales but also those of its rivals. "In bad times the competition is hurting as well and I feel it is an opportunity for Ikea," Dahlvig declared.
After showing optimism last month over its further earnings, department store operator J.C. Penney Inc. (NYSE: JCP) turned this morning to the pessimistic side and warned it expects first-quarter earnings below its previous predictions due to weak consumer demand.
The company now expects earnings of about 50 cents per share in the first-quarter, down from its prior forecast for profit in a range of 75 cents and 80 cents per share. This is well below analysts' expectations of earnings of 75 cents per share in the quarter, according to Thomson Financial.
J.C. Penney blamed challenging market conditions that put a curb on consumer spending. The slumping U.S. housing market, credit crisis and soaring oil prices put pressure on consumer confidence, resulting in low revenue numbers. During the Easter holiday, the retailer counted lower-than-expected sales.
Even when the economy struggles, people still need medicine, diapers, personal-care products, and large boxes of candy. This explains the continued sales growth at Walgreen Co. (NYSE: WAG), which saw same-store sales in February jump 8.3%. Strong Valentine's Day sales and a particularly violent flu season helped boost demand at the pharmaceutical retailer.
Excluding the extra shopping day due to Leap Year, same-store sales were up 4.2%. Same-store sales in the chain's pharmacies rose 8.3% and climbed 4.1% excluding February 29. Sales from the pharmacy were modestly impacted by the transition of popular allergy medicine Zyrtec to an over-the-counter version. In turn, the appearance of Zyrtec on the regular shelves positively impacted general-merchandise (or front-end) sales, which rose 8.2% in February, or 4.6% excluding the extra shopping day.
The impact of these sales on the bottom line will be more apparent late this month; WAG is currently scheduled to report its quarterly earnings results on March 24. According to First Call estimates, Wall Street is expecting per-share results of 67 cents, or two pennies better than year-ago figures.
In late-morning trading, WAG shares have risen 0.8%. The shares have shown recent strength, tacking on nearly 13% since their late-January nadir.
Despite a shaky economy where recession concerns deepen each day, car demand is booming for at least one major auto maker. It looks like even in a recession people continue to need cars, and the good times are rolling for car maker Honda Motor Ltd. (NYSE: HMC), which reported that its profit rose 38.1% in the third-quarter. For this period, Japan's second-biggest automakers counted strong sales for its fuel-efficient models in the U.S., Europe and Asia.
Honda's third quarter profit climbed to 200 billion yen ($1.87 billion), compared with 144.8 billion yen in the same period last year year. Cost-cutting also made the automaker post a record gain in its earnings numbers during the fiscal third quarter.
One of Honda's best competitive advantages is its strong reputation for providing more fuel-efficient cars. Thus, the recent surge in oil prices helped Honda's sales to jump 10% to 3.045 trillion yen ($28.52 billion).
General Motor hasn't announced yet its annual sales results, but analysts expect the company show 2007 sales of 9.3 million vehicles. As we can see, the sales numbers suggest a tight race in the company's fight for the biggest automaker in global sales.
The recent surge in oil prices helped Toyota to increase sales of its more fuel efficient cars, such as the Camry sedan and the Prius gas-electric hybrid models. General Motors has been able to keep the top industry spot for the past 76 years.
After concerns that e-commerce spending was growing well behind the rate that it grew last year, the pace picked up some in recent days.
According to comScore, online spending from November 1 to December 18 was up 19% to $25 billion. On Monday, December 17, e-commerce revenue jumped 33% and on December 18 it rose 25%.
The news may come as some relief to those who believed that customers shopping on the web were beginning to pull back. It now appears that they may have simply waited to see if discounts would improve as Christmas got closer. Shares in some e-commerce companies like Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) have come under some selling pressure.
Shares of Sears Holding Corp. (NYSE: SHLD) have been taking a beating in today's action after a dismal third quarter earnings report this morning. At one point shares had dipped as much as 16%, but with an hour left to go in the session shares have moved slightly higher, only showing a 12% drop as shares are trading down $14 to $101.56.
If you ask me, the stock is doing better than it probably should, considering just how poor this morning's report was. Analysts had been expecting to see the retailer show net income of 53 cents per share for its third quarter. The actual net income? ONE PENNY! It is not often that you see such a miss.
During 2007 the company showed earnings of 80 cents for its third quarter, and today's report represents the largest year over year drop in income since Sears and K-Mart merged back in 2005, and the first consecutive quarter earnings decline.
The world has not been swayed by the coy laugh of organic vegetables, the winsome eyes of local produce, the sparkling personality of grass-fed beef. When money's tight, the world goes to McDonald's for a dollar burger, and maybe a splurge on Southern-style chicken, an opportunity to win big -- or small, that next package of French fries has to come from somewhere -- with the chain's traditional 'Monopoly' game. Same-store sales were up 8.2% worldwide, with a respectable 5.3% increase in U.S. outlets.
August was yet another tough month for American auto maker 
It probably should come as no surprise, but June was a 
.gif){kind=logo}
After showing 
Even when the economy struggles, people still need medicine, diapers, personal-care products, and large boxes of candy. This explains the continued sales growth at 
Shares of 
Bush administration ignored regulators' warning of mortgage meltdown
Cramer on BloggingStocks: Any downside should now be muted 
Citigroup bailout sheds light on just what the taxpayers are buying
