Spare cash . Whats the consumer buying . These are the questions that plague all Portfolio Managers as they try to follow the money. Right now theyre leaving you in some shocking directions including today where the dow declined. Nasdaq also dipped 3. 2 . First let me just say the single biggest buzz on wall street today, the most salient gut wrenching story is this shocking decline in the business in the stock of the iconic retailer that is macys. While few people actually expected macys to do well in an environment where the globe seems to be warming right in front of our very eyes, todays sharp selloff on some really bad earnings kind of took our breaths collectively away. As the chairman and ceo said at the very beginning of his really i think very disconcerting Conference Call, we had a very tough quarter. We are clearly disappointed with the 3. 6 decline in Comp Store Sales of owned and licensed businesses. And the 8 drop in earnings per share. We believe that the retail industry
Heres the rub. It may feel familiar in terms of the magnitude of the decline to mr. Lundgren, but it isnt familiar when it comes to the reasons for the dropoff. The last time we had such a sharp decline in sales as lundgren talks about later in his Conference Call was after the fall of lehman brothers. Sales just stopped back then. That was the recessisi and then morphed inin the greatest recession. Were not experiencing anything like that cataclysmic systemic event right now. In fact, this is whats so hard to understand. Its just the opposite. Last friday we had the best employment report in ages. Less than a week ago. Were seeing meaningful wage growth, again a first. Unemployment belowow . If you didnt know a a better youd think its time for the band to strike up happy days are here again. Things abe so strong on the job front we can fully expect Federal Reserve to raise rates when they meet in december. How can they not . A victory lap can be justified, even if i think its unnecess
Today, the most salient gut wrenching story is this shocking decline in the business in the stock of the iconic retailer that is macys. While few people actually expected macys to do well in an environment where the globe seems to be warming right in front of our very eyes, todays sharp selloff on some really bad earnings kind of took our breaths collectively away. As the chairman and ceo said at the very beginning of his really i think very disconcerting Conference Call, we had a very tough quarter. We are clearly disappointed with the 3. 6 decline in Comp Store Sales of owned and licensed businesses. And the 8 drop in earnings per share. We believe that the retail industrys going through a tough period that we seem to experience Something Like this every five to seven years or so. And this one feels familiar in that regard. Aha. Heres the rub. It may feel familiar in terms of the magnitude of the decline to mr. Lundgren, but it isnt familiar when it comes to the reasons for the dropo