Der USA Bären-Thread
Seite 525 von 6257 Neuester Beitrag: 03.02.25 16:52 | ||||
| Eröffnet am: | 20.02.07 18:46 | von: Anti Lemmin. | Anzahl Beiträge: | 157.409 |
| Neuester Beitrag: | 03.02.25 16:52 | von: Katzenpirat | Leser gesamt: | 24.293.274 |
| Forum: | Börse | Leser heute: | 5.098 | |
| Bewertet mit: |  | |||
| Seite: < 1 | ... | 523 | 524 | | 526 | 527 | ... 6257 > | ||||
Optionen
| Boardmail an "relaxed" |
Wertpapier: S&P 500 |
angeblich frisches Geld, zu diesem Thema Posting 255 und 256.
Gruß
Permanent
http://www.ariva.de/..._den_Anfang_einer_weltweiten_Rezession_t299774
Denn Gisela Blümchen nimmt jetzt lt. SPON doch wieder USD.
Das ist eindeutig der Startschuss, auf den der Devisenmarkt gewartet hat.
Ist es nicht andererseits klug, wenn eine Fa. mit stark zyklischem Geschäft wie Alcoa sich bei einer drohenden Konjunkturschwäche (Börse -> Bärenmarkt) von weniger profitablen Geschäftsbereichen trennt und Kapital akkumuliert? Das würde ich als Inhaber genau so machen. Der jetzige Gewinn bezieht sich natürlich auf die Phase VOR dem Verkauf. NACH dem Verkauf der weniger profitablen Sparten wird der Umsatz zwar sinken, die Eigenkapitalrendite hingegen könnte sogar STEIGEN, weil sich die Profitabilität erhöht. Bei Konjunkturschwäche hilft diese Maßnahme daher, den Gewinn trotz Umsatzabschwächung weniger stark einbrechen zu lassen.
ZUR JETZIGEN BERICHTSAISON:
Was die negative Konsens-Erwartung zur laufenden US-Berichtsaison betrifft, so könnte ich mir vorstellen, dass wir wider Erwarten einige positive Überraschungen sehen werden - vor allem bei den US-Großunternehmen, die Umsätze im Ausland erzielen. Da werden dann pro forma höhere Gewinne aus dem Ausland gemeldet, weil der Dollar so schwach war im letzten Quartal und daher die Auslands-Gewinne - selbst wenn sie z. B. in Euro gerechnet konstant blieben - in Dollar umgerechnet überproportional gestiegen sind. Ein Großteil der SP-500-Firmen hat Auslandsgeschäft.
Die Presse wird das dann vermutlich wieder falsch darstellen: Die Gewinne, werden wir dann lesen, seien gestiegen, weil US-Firmen ihre Exporte wegen des schwachen Dollars erhöhen konnten. Tatsache ist: Die Exporte, etwa der Pampers-Verkauf von P&G in Europa, hat nicht (oder kaum) zugelegt, aber die Preise in Euro wurden nicht gesenkt (trotz Dollarverfall), so dass die Umsätze bei Bilanzierung in Dollar pro forma stiegen.
In Europa werden wir tendenziell das Umgekehrte sehen. Firmen mit hohem US-Geschäft werden - sofern sie nicht gegen Dollarschwäche abgesichert waren - kleinere Gewinne melden. Der Negativ-Trend bei den Geschäftserwartungen geht daher bereits eine Weile nach unten. Im Chart der hiesigen Autofirmen wie VW ist das deutlich ablesbar.
FAZIT:
Shorts könnten in der jetzigen Berichtssaison, vor allem nach den jüngsten starken Kursverlusten der US-Indizes, auf dem falschen Fuß erwischt werden, zumal wenn Bernanke noch mit einem 0,5 % Geschenk nachhilft und Bush ein Konjunktur-Programm auflegt. Longs dürften jetzt mMn kurzfristig eine weitere technische Erholung sehen. Mittelfristig bleibt "long" jedoch riskant, weil sich die Krisensymptome häufen und nun selbst GS offiziell vor einer US-Rezession warnt.
Die große Frage ist, ob die jetzigen Kursrückgänge von 10 % ab dem Herbst-ATH den US-Fondmanagern als hinreichende Korrektur in einem Wahljahr erscheinen. Die zweite große Frage ist, ob die Fond-Redemptions nun schon gelaufen sind (es gab massive Mittelabflüsse) oder ob die Welle noch weiter läuft. Dabei muss man bedenken, dass die meisten Fondhalter in USA, vor allem in ihren IRA-Positionen, Langfristhalter sind. Wegen der Ausgabeaufschläge von teils 5 % drängt sich "Traden" mit Fonds ohnehin nicht auf.
Im Endeffekt wird alles von den Charts abhängen, die die Massenstimmung beeinflussen. Prallen die Indizes bei der jetzt kommenden techn. Erholung an Widerständen (alten, gebrochenen Unterstützungen) ab, setzt sich der Bärenmarkt fort. Gelingt es den Indizes - wie so oft im letzten Jahr - eine nach Charttechnik-Schulbuch eigentlich nicht nachhaltige V-förmige Erholung hinzulegen, die anschließend NICHT abverkauft wird (unwahrscheinlich, aber nicht unmöglich, gerade im Wahljahr), dann könnten Shorts auch mal wieder ungläubig neue Indexhöchststände bestaunen.
Für Letzteres spricht das erklärte Interesse des PPT, die Charts nicht absaufen zu lassen, weil niemand die dann folgende Negativ-Spirale aus Fond-Redemptions und weiteren Kursverlusten WILL - außer einigen shortsellenden Rentnern in Germany.
Alcoa hat ziemlich gutes viertes Quartal reported. Wie in der kurzen Zusammenfassung ersichtlich, gab es so gut wie keine Sondereffekte (wie z.B. im dritten Quartal: Discountinued Operations). Also, Kritiker, bitte vorher die Präsentation (http://www.alcoa.com/global/en/investment/pdfs/...st_Presentation.pdf) durchschauen und dann meckern. Gewinnwarnungen wird es noch "zu Hauf" geben.
Erst Amerika, dann Japan – und später die ganze Welt? Nach Einschätzung des Geldhauses Goldman Sachs drohen die beiden größten Volkswirtschaften in eine Rezession zu rutschen. Die Krise könnte dann rasch übergreifen. Die Uno warnt bereits, die Gefahr eines globalen Abschwungs sei gewachsen.
New York/Tokio – Jetzt auch Japan? Die immer noch wichtigste Wirtschaftsmacht Asiens könnte nach Berechnungen der Goldman-Sachs-Ökonomen in die Rezession stürzen und damit den USA folgen. Die Wahrscheinlichkeit einer Rezession in Nippon liege bei 50 Prozent, heißt es von Goldman in Tokio. Droht dann ein Domino-Effekt?
An den globalen Finanzmärkten geht schon seit Wochen die Furcht vor einer Rezession in den USA um. Volkswirte sprechen in der Regel dann von einer Rezession, wenn die Wirtschaftsleistung in zwei aufeinander folgenden Quartalen abnimmt.
Erst gestern hatte Goldman Sachs erklärt, in den USA sei 2008 eine Rezession zu erwarten - unter anderem wegen der Krise am Immobilienmarkt. Im zweiten und dritten Quartal werde die Wirtschaftsleistung auf das Jahr hochgerechnet um jeweils ein Prozent schrumpfen. Im Gesamtjahr werde das Wachstum des Bruttoinlandsprodukts (BIP) lediglich bei 0,8 Prozent liegen.
Auch der frühere US-Finanzminister Larry Summers hält eine Rezession in den USA für immer wahrscheinlicher. "Ich gehe stark davon aus, dass sich die US- und die Weltwirtschaft an einem Wendepunkt befinden und ein höheres Risiko als je zuvor in diesem Jahrhundert haben, in eine Rezession zu rutschen", sagte Summers heute in Oslo.
Drei Risiko-Faktoren
Dass sich die US-Wirtschaft abschwäche und in eine Rezession falle, sei der wahrscheinlichste Fall. "Der US-Verbraucher ist nicht in der Lage, die Wirtschaft nach vorne zu bringen", sagte Summers. Er war unter US-Präsident Bill Clinton von 1999 bis 2001 im Amt.
Die Vereinten Nationen sehen bereits die Gefahr einer weltweiten Rezession. Es gebe klare und bereits gegenwärtige Anzeichen, dass das Wachstum der Weltwirtschaft nahezu zum Erliegen komme, heißt es im Jahresbericht der Uno zur globalen Wirtschaftsentwicklung. Ein Grund für die Entwicklung sei - neben dem Abschwung am US-Häusermarkt und der Kreditmarkt-Krise - auch der schwache Dollar.
Zwar könne die Weltwirtschaft 2008 um etwa 3,4 Prozent wachsen. Spiele man jedoch ein pessimistischeres Szenario durch, sei aber nur ein Zuwachs von 1,6 Prozent zu erwarten. Noch sei nicht sicher, dass es zu einer Rezession komme, die Chancen stünden etwa 50 zu 50. Vor zwei Monaten war die Uno noch optimistischer.
NEW YORK (Fortune) -- Faced with foreclosure on her Russellville, Indiana home, Christina Snyder allegedly concocted the kind of plan that now has insurance executives on edge.
According to the county prosecutor, the 31-year-old Snyder allegedly offered to pay a neighbor $5,000 to help her burn down her house and make it look like a botched rape attempt - all in order to claim $80,000 in insurance money. Snyder wanted the neighbor to bind her hands in duct tape, write "whore" on her shirt, and then help her escape once the blaze was set, the prosecutor says. The neighbor demurred, instead reporting Snyder to police.
With the national foreclosure rate zooming and the real estate market in a two-year funk, the insurance industry fears more homeowners will see arson as a way out of their financial woes. A recent report by the industry-funded Coalition Against Insurance Fraud notes that with "untold thousands of homeowners struggling with ballooning subprime mortgage payments, fraud fighters are watching closely for a spike in arsons by desperate homeowners who can no longer afford their home payments." History indicates such a spike is coming. "When the economy is down, we see an increase in fraud," says Dennis Schulkins, a claim consultant in State Farm's Special Investigative Unit.
It may already be happening. Allstate (ALL, Fortune 500) spokesman Mike Siemienas says his company has seen an increase nationally in arsons among homes in foreclosure. In California, the state¹s insurance division reports that the number of questionable residential fires in 2007 increased 76 percent over 2006.
National arson statistics for 2007 aren¹t yet available, but Federal Bureau of Investigation crime data shows there was a significant uptick - 4 percent - in suburban arson in 2006, when the real estate downtown began to take hold....
http://money.cnn.com/2008/01/09/news/companies/...tversion=2008011004
NEW YORK (Fortune) -- Late last summer, Bank of America and its deal-hungry chief Kenneth Lewis won kudos for a $2 billion investment in Countrywide Financial, the once high-flying mortgage lender hit hard by the housing slump.
In one stroke, Lewis erased his reputation as a serial over-payer with the kind of convertible preferred stock deal that arbitrage traders dream of. In exchange for its $2 billion, Bank of America secured the right to buy Countrywide (CFC, Fortune 500) stock at $18, a tidy 21 percent discount over the price at the time. Lewis, it seemed, had deftly locked in an instant $424 million profit for the bank.
Nobody's congratulating Bank of America these days. As Countrywide shares tank and speculation mounts that the company will be forced into bankruptcy, the bank's stake has plunged in value, to about $560 million. Now Bank of America faces a tough choice: It can buy Countrywide outright, pour even more money into the lender, or simply bide its time and hope for the best.
Whatever it does, Bank of America no longer appears so savvy. And Lewis, who's been criticized for paying top dollar for, among other companies, credit-card lender MBNA ($35 billion) and U.S. Trust ($3.3 billion), is once again looking like a spendthrift.
Bank of America and Countrywide declined comment.
Merrill Lynch & Co., the largest brokerage, also is in talks with investors and may get $3 billion to $4 billion, the Journal said earlier today, without citing any sources. Citigroup has already received about $7.5 billion from Abu Dhabi and Merrill said last month that it's raising as much as $6.2 billion from Singapore's Temasek Holdings Pte. and New York-based money manager Davis Selected Advisors LP. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aFMyNNzF54DI
Stimmt. Die Strategie der großen Banken wird vermutlich darin bestehen, sich bereits im Vorfeld der Ergebnisse ausländisches Kapital aus Asien oder dem mittleren Osten zu sichern...
http://www.handelsblatt.com/News/Unternehmen/...ch-frisches-geld.html
... um dann bei der Präsentation der schlechten Zahlen/Verluste sagen zu können: Ja, wir HATTEN Probleme und Finanzengpässe, aber die sind nun durch Beteiligungen/ Wandelschuldverschreibungen in Höhe von XY Mrd. des Sovereign-Wealth-Funds ABC "gelöst". Der Ausblick wird dann wegen der Kapitalspritze und der bereits zuvor deutlich korrigierten Gewinnerwartungen "positiv". Nach dieser Strategie scheint auch UBS aus der Schweiz vorzugehen.
Details: http://www.ariva.de/..._seine_Loesung_t299774?pnr=3880651#jump3880651
Das haben die sich von der US-Regierung abgeguckt: Die leugnet eine Rezession, während sie sich ereignet (weil nicht sein kann, was nicht sein darf), um dann nach deren Ende rückblickend zu verkünden: "Ja, es gab nach revidierten Zahlen DOCH eine Rezession, sie ist aber inzwischen überwunden."
und Capital One mit miesen Zahlen
an. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Freddie Mac, the mortgage-finance company that reported its biggest loss last quarter, may be downgraded by Moody's Investors Service because the damage from loan defaults could be worse than the ratings company expected.
Moody's said it may lower Freddie's financial strength rating from A-, the second-highest grade. The McLean, Virginia- based company's top Aaa senior long-term debt rating and the Prime-1 rating for its commercial paper or short-term IOUs won't be cut, Moody's said.
Chief Executive Officer Richard Syron has attempted to shore up Freddie Mac's finances by selling $6 billion of preferred stock, slicing its dividend in half and reducing its mortgage assets by $30.9 billion to $701.4 billion in the three months to Nov. 30. The government-chartered company may need to take similar steps again, Moody's said.
Freddie Mac ``may experience higher credit losses than Moody's previous expectations,'' Moody's analysts led by Brian L. Harris in New York said in the report late yesterday. ``In its review, Moody's will focus on Freddie Mac's asset quality and the potential that the company may experience an elevated level of credit charges over the near to medium term.''
Jan. 10 (Bloomberg) -Capital One Financial Corp., the largest independent U.S. credit-card issuer, reduced its full- year profit forecast by about 20 percent because of swelling loan losses in a weakening U.S. economy.
The company expects 2007 profit of about $3.97 a share, down from a previous forecast of about $5. The decline was caused by about $1.9 billion of loan-loss provisions and $80 million in legal reserves in the fourth quarter, McLean, Virginia-based Capital One said in a statement today.
Capital One dropped 3.5 percent in German trading to $41.85
Bären aufgepasst,-der New Deal 2008 kommt und das PPT kann die Shorties im heissesten Öl braten.....
Bears beware. The New Deal of 2008 is in the works. The US Treasury is about to shower households with rebate cheques to head off a full-blown slump, and save the Bush presidency.
On Friday, Mr Bush convened the so-called Plunge Protection Team for its first known meeting in the Oval Office. The black arts unit - officially the President's Working Group on Financial Markets - was created after the 1987 crash.It appears to have powers to support the markets in a crisis with a host of instruments, mostly by through buying futures contracts on the stock indexes (DOW, S&P 500, NASDAQ and Russell) and key credit levers. And it has the means to fry "short" traders in the hottest of oils.
US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson
Hank Paulson has faced an economic slowdown since leaving Wall Street
The team is led by Treasury chief Hank Paulson, ex-Goldman Sachs, a man with a nose for market psychology, and includes Fed chairman Ben Bernanke and the key exchange regulators.
Judging by a well-briefed report in the Washington Post, a mood of deep alarm has taken hold in the upper echelons of the administration. "What everyone's looking at is what is the fastest way to get money out there," said a Bush aide.
Emergency measures are now clearly on the agenda, apparently consisting of a mix of tax cuts for businesses and bungs for consumers. Fiscal action all too appropriate, regrettably.
We face a version of Keynes's "extreme liquidity preference" in the 1930s - banks are hoarding money, and the main credit arteries of the financial system remain blocked after five months."In terms of any stimulus package, we're considering all options," said Mr Bush. This should be interesting to watch. The president is not one for half measures. He has already shown in Iraq and on biofuels that he will pursue policies a l'outrance once he gets the bit between his teeth.
The only question is what the president can manage to push through a Democrat Congress.
The Plunge Protection Team - long kept secret - was last mobilised to calm the markets after 9/11. It then went into hibernation during the long boom.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/...ILC-mostviewedbox
Thursday January 10, 6:28 am ET
By Daniel Lovering, AP Business Writer
Alcoa 4th-Quarter Earnings Jump 76 Percent on Pending Sale of Packaging, Consumer Businesses
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- Alcoa Inc., the world's third-largest aluminum maker, kicked off earnings season by posting a 76 percent profit gain for the fourth quarter as the pending sale of its consumer and packaging businesses offset lower prices.
ADVERTISEMENT
The Pittsburgh-based company said net income soared to $632 million, or 75 cents per share, for the three months ended Dec. 31, from $359 million, or 41 cents per share, during the same period a year earlier.
The earnings included restructuring and tax gains totaling $323 million, or 38 cents per share, mostly from the company's recent agreement to sell the packaging and consumer units.
Lower metal prices and the exclusion of results from a soft alloy extrusion business, which is now part of a joint venture, pulled down quarterly revenue to $7.39 billion from $7.84 billion last year.
The results released Wednesday exceeded Wall Street predictions. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial, on average, were looking for earnings of 33 cents per share on $6.92 billion in revenue. Those forecasts typically exclude one-time items.
Alcoa shares rose $1.30, or 4.2 percent, to $32.55 in after-hours electronic trading. Before the results were released, the stock rose 25 cents in regular trading to close at $31.25 per share.
Alcoa is the first member of the Dow Jones industrials to report fourth-quarter financial results.
Alain Belda, Alcoa's chairman and chief executive, said revenue for 2007 set an all-time record, growing to $30.75 billion from $30.38 billion the previous year. Income from continuing operations and cash generation also reached record levels, he said.
During the year, the company faced higher material, energy and currency exchange costs but continued to invest in its largest capital improvement program to date, he said.
Alcoa pumped money into new plants, expanded production at others, modernized operations, renegotiated long-term power agreements and built new energy facilities to ensure access to power at competitive rates during the year, Belda said.
It remained focused on growth markets such Brazil, China and Russia, though progress in Russia has been disappointing, he said.
Alcoa's profit for 2007 increased 14 percent to $2.56 billion, from $2.25 billion in 2006.
The aluminum market last year was "very strong, with total world consumption increasing 10 percent," Belda said in a conference call with reporters and analysts. "For 2008, we are projecting similar growth."
The coming growth is expected to be concentrated in developing countries such as China and India while North America enters a cyclical decline in its construction and housing markets and Europe shows only modest growth, he said.
In December, Alcoa said it was selling its packaging and consumer businesses for $2.7 billion cash to Rank Group Ltd., a private New Zealand company. The deal is expected to close by the end of the first quarter.
The businesses to be sold include Alcoa's Closure Systems International, Flexible Packaging, Consumer Products, and Reynolds Food Packaging units. They include the Reynolds Wrap foil brand.
Alcoa's Closure Systems makes plastic and aluminum packaging closures for food, drink and personal care products, while its Flexible Packaging unit makes pouch and blister packaging, shrink labels and foil lids for drug, food and other uses.
The Consumer Products unit makes Reynolds Wrap and private label foil and food wraps, while the Reynolds Food Packaging unit makes foil, film and food containers for food service, supermarket, agricultural and other markets.
Mark Liinamaa, a Morgan Stanley analyst who recommends buying Alcoa stock, said Alcoa's gains had more than offset weakness in its flat-rolled segment, which was worse than expected.
"They're doing what they said they were going to do, and that's good news," he said.
But Charles Bradford of Bradford Research/Soliel Securities said Alcoa "did a lot of juggling" in its reporting of the quarterly results. "If you look at almost all their segments, they were down."
"What happened, very basically, was the metal price came down and the metal price came down a lot," he said. "And that's the story."
Alcoa Inc.: http://www.alcoa.com
The cost of protection in credit markets has risen to new hights, the FT reports. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/...dc-8c61-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1 The iTraxx Crossover index, the credit default swap benchmark index of European junk debt, rose to 403bp. Translated into English this means: it costs €403,000 to protect against the default of €10m of debt in the iTraxx basket. In the US, a benchmark index for investment grade debt also reached a new high. The paper also cited a forecast from Moody, according to which the default rate on junk debt will rise fivefold to 4.8% this year.
In a separate article, the FT writes about a recent warning by Bill Gross, who runs the world’s largest bond fund at Pimco, and who express concern about the implications of an economic downturn on the market for credit default swaps, which totals about €45 trillion. If defaults exceed a certain threshold, trouble lies ahead, as sellers of protection will be called on to pay up. He puts the expected losses at over 250bn. This is what Gross had to say: “As capital gains and capital losses slosh from one side of the shadow system’s boat to the other, casualties and shipwrecks are the inevitable consequence.”
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d096d10c-be46-11dc-8bc9-0000779fd2ac.html
Nicht vergessen: Der Kurs kommt von 38USD!
Der kleine Upper gestern erscheint da eher wie eine technische Korrektur.
Goldman Sachs schürt Angst vor Domino-Rezession
Erst Amerika, dann Japan – und später die ganze Welt? Nach Einschätzung des Geldhauses Goldman Sachs drohen die beiden größten Volkswirtschaften in eine Rezession zu rutschen. Die Krise könnte dann rasch übergreifen. Die Uno warnt bereits, die Gefahr eines globalen Abschwungs sei gewachsen.
http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/0,1518,527800,00.html
Global Consumer and Small Business Banking (GC&SBB) is the largest division in the company, and deals primarily with consumer banking and credit card issuance. The acquisition of FleetBoston and MBNA significantly expanded its size and range of services, resulting in about 51% of the company's total revenue in 2005. It competes directly with the retail banking divisions of Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase. The GC&SBB organization includes over 5,700 retail branches and over 17,000 ATMs across the United States."
(Quelle: wikipedia)
In ihrem Hauptgeschäftsfeld dürfte die Bank aktuell und auch wohl noch in Zukunft einige Probleme haben. Speziell der Sektor "small business" bricht in den USA schon seit Mitte 2007 und verstärkt seit Oktober regelrecht ein, vergleichbar mit dem Housing Sektor, dem Mortgage Finance Sektor oder dem Retail Sektor. (Quelle: Markt-Daten.de)
NEW YORK (AP) - Most of the nation's major retailers are slated to report tepid sales gains for December on Thursday, likely making the holiday shopping season the weakest since 2002.
But several retailers, including teen merchants American Eagle Outfitters Inc. and Hot Topics Inc. reduced their earnings forecasts on Wednesday amid sluggish sales, a sign that doesn't bode well for the holiday profit and sales picture.
The size of the pullback in consumer spending could inflame recession fears that have grown amid a recent batch of negative economic reports.
Consumers, faced with higher gas and food prices, a slumping housing market and an escalating credit crisis, have been cutting back on spending over the past year. But recent news of $100-a-barrel oil, a weakening job market and a mortgage sector in distress are making economists more worried about consumers' financial health.
"I am very pessimistic about the outlook for consumer spending," said Carl Steidtmann, chief economist at Deloitte Research, who forecasts declines in same-store sales in coming months. "There is a strong host of headwinds that consumers are facing."
Same-store sales are sales at stores opened at least a year and are considered a key indicator of a retailer's health.
According to the International Council of Shopping Centers-UBS tally, same-store sales are expected to be up no more than 1.0 percent for December, reduced from the original 1.5 percent projection. That would mean that the holiday shopping period, spanning November and December, will be up a modest 2.25 percent, according to Michael P. Niemira, chief economist at the association.
If December's sales fall below the 1 percent gain, that would make the 2007 holiday shopping season the weakest since 2002 when the holiday period was up a meager 0.5 percent.
According to the ICSC-UBS tally, same-store sales growth has averaged 2.4 percent so far this fiscal year, compared with 3.6 percent for the entire fiscal 2006. Retailers' fiscal year ends in late January.
December sales were hurt in part by a quirk in the calendar, which pushed the post-Thanksgiving shopping week into November rather than December.
Nevertheless, a weakening economy clearly has made shoppers more frugal.
"This holiday season, consumers were even more bargain-oriented that we have since at least the 2001 recession," said Ken Perkins, president of RetailMetrics LLC, a research company in Swampscott, Mass.
Perkins noted the slowdown in spending has been broad-based, and he and others fear that a further deterioration in the job market -- the last remaining leg propping up consumer buying -- could derail the pace even more.
On Friday, the job report from the Labor Department showed that hiring practically stalled in December, driving the nation's unemployment rate up to a two-year high of 5 percent.
Meanwhile, The American Bankers Association reported last Thursday that late payments on a cluster of consumer loans, including those for autos, home improvement and certain home equity loans, rose in the summer to their highest level since the country's last recession in 2001.
On Wednesday, Countrywide Financial Corp., the nation's largest mortgage lender, said the delinquency and foreclosure rate of mortgages in its portfolio skyrocketed in December, sending off alarm bells of a worsening mortgage crisis.
Over the past week or so, reports of weak sales from various merchants have been trickling in confirming how such economic woes are taking a toll on consumer spending.
Late Wednesday, Hot Topic reported a 6.2 percent decline in same-store sales for December; analysts polled by Thomson Financial expected a 6.5 percent decrease. The retailer cut its fourth-quarter earnings outlook.
American Eagle, meanwhile, announced a 2 percent same-store sales decline, in line with Wall Street estimates. It also lowered its fourth-quarter profit forecast.
On Tuesday, supermarket chain Supervalu Inc. reduced its full-year profit outlook, suggesting that financial pressure was hurting its customers. And Family Dollar Inc. reported a 4 percent drop in fiscal first-quarter profits and said it expects second-quarter sales will fall due in part to lower consumer spending.
Last week, CVS Caremark Corp. and other drug store chains, which are usually vulnerable to a recession, released weak sales reports for December. While CVS and its rivals blamed a mild flu season for muted business, they also cited a weaker economy.
Analysts say that discounters should fare best since shoppers are trading down to less expensive stores. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, has maintained that it will meet its goal of same-store sales growth for December of 1 percent to 3 percent.
But the hardest hit will be apparel chains, which have languished because of the slowing economy and lack of compelling fashions. The popularity of gadgets like iPods and flat-panel TVs have also siphoned away sales from apparel sellers. Luxury stores should continue to do well, though the sales pace is slowing, according to Gilbert Harrison, chairman of Financo Inc., an investment banking firm specializing in retailing.
In the end, Harrison says that those retailers that have "the most interesting, innovative offerings" are going to win.
© 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/...&date=20080109&id=8015798