Last-minute shopping rush boosted retailers (Associated Press)
Same-store sales for the month and for the November-December period are on track to meet a modest gain of anywhere from 3.0 percent to 3.5 percent, compared to a year ago.
I am so sick of hearing retailers whine about their “modest” Christmas sales increase year-on-year of 3 to 3.5 percent. When GDP grows by that amount annually, we call it a booming economy. So why not call it that when Christmas sales are up by that amount?
UPDATE (01-07-2006): Hey, I see that four people followed a link over here as of today. Goody! In case there are more, I’d like to invite ya’ll to explain to me whether you call annual growth in American GDP of 3-3.5% “modest” or whether you think it’s something beyond that?
I think it’s something beyond that, and it didn’t even strike me that any sensible person would find it arguable (indeed, I’d wager sensible people don’t really). By extension, it strikes me that 3-3.5% annual growth of same-store holiday sales is something beyond modest, and that overall retail sales will be up by a larger amount (we saw many retailers making the move from regional to national this year, as Jim Cramer documents almost nightly, which will boost those overall retail numbers).
Now, would retailers prefer a 10% increase in y-o-y same-store sales? Well, yeah! But that’s unrealistic. To suggest otherwise excellent numbers are “modest” is just spin from those retailers — whiny spin, in my view. Your mileage may vary, especially if you spend waste lots of your time trying to pick stupid fights with me. Whatever. 🙂
Oh, and some folks need to expand their understanding of hedge funds. They’re not particularly risky, and they’re also not particularly good indicators of or drivers of growth. Hedge funds are akin to mutual funds, with several important differences: 1) they are largely unregulated private partnerships managed with the goal of making money through market trading — stocks, bonds, currencies, what have you; 2) there are usually significant capital requirements for participation — hence, the correct notion that they are instruments of the rich; 3) managers of hedge funds are typically paid according to the fund’s annual profits; if the fund goes into the red for a year, the manager typically is not paid until it is back in the black — this is THE SIGNIFICANT difference from mutual funds. Hedge funds are expected to make money for their partners in good economic times and bad; they aren’t “junk” bonds or akin to junk bonds, although they may may well trade in “junk” bonds. Anyway, I’m glad we could clear that up for folks who might be confused.