Wal-Mart Stock is Down, Holiday Sales Less Than Mediocre

[Zorra]

Although the media is apparently trying to increase consumer and investor confidence by touting holiday sales as being "strong", if you read between the lines, the Thanksgiving Weekend sales did not meet projected economic expectations. Here is the fine print:
-------- ---------- ---------
Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer, reported a one-day record on Friday, with sales of $1.52bn, up 6.3 per cent from $1.43bn last year. It said the best-selling categories were home electronics, small appliances and toys - as last year.

But analysts warned that last year's sales came from 2,849 Wal-Mart stores, while the total was 2,966 stores this year, so the underlying, or same-store, increase, would be more modest.

http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1069493597186

Dow member Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer, said it booked a record $1.52 billion in sales on the Friday after Thanksgiving, up from last year's $1.43 billion.

The stock slid 1.3 percent, however, after SunTrust Robinson Humphrey said the sales figures were "disappointing," when considering the company had increased square footage by an estimated 7 to 8 percent. Fellow Dow retailer Home Depot fell 1 percent.

http://www.quicken.com/investments/news_center/story/?story=NewsStory/cbswatch/20031201/3F78938F-EBF0-437B-8302-FC52702F7841.var&column=P0DST

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) fell 93 cents, or 1.7 percent, to $54.71. The Dow component posted a record $1.52 billion in sales on the Friday after the U.S. Thanksgiving Day holiday, but analysts were not impressed, noting the 6.3 percent year-over-year sales increase was well below the 14.4 percent jump of a year earlier

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,104444,00.html

The National Retail Federation said US retailers were reporting similar sales gains this weekend to a year ago. It stuck to its forecast of an overall 5.7 per cent increase in holiday sales to $217.4bn - the largest increase since 1999 - compared with only a 2.2 per cent increase last year.

http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1069493597186

ShopperTrak, which combines Commerce Department data with data from 30,000 store traffic monitors across the U.S., said "Black Friday" sales rose 4.8 percent over last year to $7.2 billion.

http://www.quicken.com/investments/news_center/story/?story=NewsStory/cbswatch/20031201/3F78938F-EBF0-437B-8302-FC52702F7841.var&column=P0DST

If sales this past weekend really were great, it would be screaming front page news. Instead, the media is spinning less than mediocre sales figures into "strong holiday sales." Wal-mart was touted as having record sales, which is true, butthey have 117 more stores open than they did last year, and sales increases were almost exactly 8% less than they were last year. The NRF was projecting a 5.7% overall increase over last year, but ShopperTrak said that the increase in "Black Friday" sales was only 4.8%, which is below the overall projection.

IMO, when it comes to government released economic statistics and corporate media economic headlines, it's not what they say, but how they derived their figures, and how and why they say what they say that needs to be scrutinized. It seems like they usually attempt to make the economic picture look far brighter than it really is in order to get Squatter reselected.

[slappypan]

1. How profitable is it to sell $30 dvd players?

They are also selling groceries now, a business with very low margins.

[Military Brat]

13. My argument exactly ... deep discounts to lure shoppers

That is not a sustainable marketing strategy. Also, the new barometer is not really the day after Thanksgiving, it is the last Saturday before Christmas, which will be Dec. 20th this year. I wish I had a link, can't remember where I read that info.

And what the hell is going to happen when January and February roll around and all those credit card bills are due because consumers gave in to "cheap" prices? Same old story.

[Noordam]

2. And Black Friday does not always count

I know ppl that after Black Friday said, "My shopping is DONE". Sure a lot of ppl shop on Black Friday BUT how many are cutting BACK and are almost done with their shopping.....

[Sliverofhope]

3. This is probably obvious to many

But it's yet another example to see that the media really isn't on our side at all. How horrible.

[Jeff in Cincinnati]

4. Rebate Checks

I know that some folks who received rebate checks simply did their Christmas shopping "early" and won't be participating in this year's extravaganza. I think the prediction of strong holiday sales is just so much wishful thinking.

[lebkuchen]

5. The media was projecting robust sales weeks ago

It simply won't happen. Too many people are out of work.

Sales this year will be worst than last, no matter how glowing a picture the media paints.

I bought everything as close to the producer as possible, whether artists, farmers, or various artisans. Walmart et al won't see a dime of my holiday money.

[tridim]

6. I wonder how many people maxed out their credit cards

last Friday? My guess, most of them.

You wouldn't know it from the news this weekend. The ministry of propaganda made it clear that everyone is spending huge amounts of money this xmas season. Nothing to worry about, the economy is STRONG!!! Yea right, tell that to the 2000 Sprint employees that were just shit-canned this week.

[BiggJawn]

7. "We're not worrying about the bills, just spendin' what we want to..."

Was the sound bite I heard over the weekend...

What a LOAD...Sales are up over 6%, but that's not good enough because they have a little over 100 more stores than they did last year?

Why do I get the impression that there's a lot of old fashioned GREED going on here?

[cthrumatrix]

8. you expected truth in reporting...? That's gone...it's all spin now

[Demobrat]

9. I don't know about Friday,

but on Sunday I was downtown (San Francisco) and I saw more sales people yawning and looking at their watches than helping people. Yes, it was raining, but still...

[LittleApple81]

10. My town newspaper (we have population around 45000)

said that Friday sales were disappointing for everybody except Walmart.

[Heddi]

11. Strangely enough

I went out shopping a bit on Friday--just to Walgreens, a craft store, and another drug-store type store.

There was no problem parking. Traffic wasn't bad. I even had to drive by one of the malls (around 11am) and there were plenty of parking spaces.

I have learned not to believe the Media Hype.

You know, the HYPE that says people will spend an average of about $450-$500 on Christmas gifts---strangely enough, the week before THAT report came out, ANOTHER report came out saying that people were going to spend, on average, $1000+ on gifts....

I got the paper on Thanksgiving, and there were pooploads of circulars for sales, but the sales prices weren't that great. A $45 DVD player here and there (of course, after $50 in manufacturer's rebates, and another $10 in store rebates, and only if you have the coupon, etc)---but nothing EARTH SHATTERING like in years past.

Besides my mother, no one I know went out and did the "Up at 5:00am to stand in line" shopping that they did 3 and 4 years ago.

I saw more people out shopping on Saturday and Sunday than I did on Friday.

And for all these BILLIONS spent at Walmart on Friday---how many BILLIONS in late Credit Card fees, late mortgages, late car payments, etc, will we see in January and February?

Do the morons think that people FORGET that they've lost their jobs, or that they're working 2 jobs to make up for the 1 that they lost 2 years ago? Or that they've already had to pare down the spending anyways?

I heard on the news that the increase in sales this year over last year was the largest increase in sales in nearly 20 years. SOunds positive, right?

Well lets say I'm unemployed this year and make $0. Next year, I get a job and make $14k a year. That's a $14,000 increase from the year before. That's the largest increase in household income I've had in my life.

It's true, but deceptive in reporting.....

[paulk]

17. what they're not saying about the largest increase

in sales in nearly 20 years is that last years x-mas shopping season was the worst in 33 years. So, yeah, pretty deceptive.

[MadHound]

12. Get used to this folks

The media is going to be spinning how good the economy is for the next eleven months. After all, they want to keep their partner in crime(the Chimp in Chief) in power for another four years.

Yep, expect nothing but glowing lies about the economy until November of next year. Then expect another crash and burn of the economy afterwards.

[Zorra]

14. The only reason we are not in a depression right now

is that Squatter lied us into war in order to stimulate the economy. The bottom line is that republicans are huge deficit spenders and big government lovers that do not understand how to establish a sound economic policy which will encourage long term sustainable growth. Republicans rely on war profiteering, "voodoo economics", and new, phony ways of calculating economic statistics in order to artificially stimulate the economy and subsequently hope they fool the public so it helps get them re-elected.

The current artificially inflated economic "growth" is not sustainable. The economy is going to crash and burn so hard it is going to make Reagan's stock market crash of 1987 and Hoover's crash of 1929 look like a holiday on the Riviera. And it is probably going to happen relatively soon, like in early 2005. Unless, of course, another Democratic President is elected who will fix the the economy pronto before this can happen.

Otherwise, Democrats are going to once again have to pick up the pieces of another republican devastated economy, just like FDR did after Hoover, and Clinton did after Reagan/Bush.

When are people going to wake up and realize that the republicans have absolutely no clue as to what the hell they are doing, economically or otherwise, when they are in government?

[spooky3]

15. I hope it's soon.

I really appreciate being able to come to DU and find many links to articles that tell the truth.

Thanks, everyone.

[tritsofme]

21. Please tell me,

>>>Unless, of course, another Democratic President is elected who will fix the the economy pronto before this can happen.


Exactly how a Democratic President would be able to fix this cluster fuck of an economy that * has created "pronto"???

His first budget wont even come into effect until October of 2005.

[qanda]

16. I gave my experience the other day...

When the one day totals for Wal-Mart were announced. There are stores all around me and I live outside of Baltimore, so there are plenty of people to fill up those stores. I went out on Saturday, expecting traffic jams and the like, but found NONE! There were plenty of parking spots at both malls that I went to and even the Toys R Us was virtually abandoned. I have never seen anything like it on the Saturday after Thanksgiving (which *is* the biggest holiday shopping day, by the way). I told my sister and my husband that if this is what they call a recovery, I'd hate to see what a recession looks like.

[TexasPatriot]

20. similar experience

went to the giant outlet mall with the family... more available parking on sunday than on a normal weekend, most stores were empty, or had a couple of shoppers. This was sunday afternoon, but it's not like the cowboys were on tv - and it had to be 70 outside (it's an outdoor mall). I trust the numbers that came out - but i sure didnt think they'd be good based on my experience yesterday.

[KansDem]

18. 48% didn't shop at all...

CNN Money poll:

1. Where did you do the most shopping this past weekend?

Malls 18%
Big discount stores 16%
Local shops 7%
Online 11%
Didn't shop at all 48%

total responses to this question: 4490
http://money.cnn.com/POLLSERVER/results/7591.html

Right above the "Holiday shoppers hit the stores" story link.

[redqueen]

19. Just a few more examples of how whored out the meida is

Love your sig, Zorra. :)