This week’s quarterly results from stores like Macy’s Inc. and Nordstrom Inc. will help set the tone for the rest of the season, as shoppers continue to look for deals as prices rise. Black Friday and the holiday shopping rush are coming up soon.
According to executives at Gap Inc. (GAP), the holiday season has been going well so far. The company is getting more wealthy customers looking for deals and starting a drive to make its stores look new again. This year, the National Retail Federation thinks that Americans will spend even more than they did last year during the holidays.
But that same industry group also said that sales growth would be slower during that time and that customer behavior might start to return to how it was before the pandemic. Target Corp. TGT gave a gloomy report and said that customers were still hesitant to spend. And Ross Stores Inc. ROST said that its shoppers with lower incomes, who have been hit harder by inflation, were still having a hard time.
ANF stands for Abercrombie & Fitch Co., BURL stands for Burlington Stores Inc., DKS stands for Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc., KSS stands for Kohl’s Corp., and BBWI stands for Bath & Body Works Inc.
People haven’t been able to buy clothes, furniture, or electronics because prices for things like groceries and rent have been going up for over two years. Economists say that this could keep prices high because President-elect Trump might make tariffs stricter. This week’s earnings calls could give us more information on how retailers might react to these policy changes. For example, some stores have already moved production out of China and into other countries, and others say they can do the same.
More attention could be paid by Wall Street to the efforts made by each store chain to boost demand and, for some old names, cultural cachet.
For example, Macy’s is trying out new ideas in shops based on what customers say. In its namesake shops that are having trouble, Urban Outfitters URBN is trying to be a little less of an independent brand. Gap is changing how it markets its own stores and is also trying to get more families to shop at Old Navy and more wealthy people to shop at Banana Republic.
This week in money made
As of this week, nine S&P 500 companies have reports out.
Outside of the bigger stores, Zoom Video Communications Inc. ZM is releasing its earnings this week. The findings will also come from Autodesk Inc. ADSK and Dell Technologies Inc. Dell, Workday Inc. (WDAY), and HP Inc. HPQ
The appointments you need to make
This Tuesday, Macy’s M, Kohl’s KSS, and Nordstrom JWN all report their sales. The people in charge of those chains have been careful about the road ahead. But along with the big picture of the holiday season, the results calls from the chains could give more information about what smaller efforts and brands are working well with customers.
The number to pay attention to
As a result of a bad software update from CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. (CRWD) in July that shut down a lot of technology, HSBC analyst Stephen Bersey said a month later that “the bad news is behind us.” We’ll see what they say about that when they report their quarterly numbers on Tuesday. The business is in court with Delta Air Lines Inc. DAL over the blackout, which messed up flights and locked Windows users out of their computers. Since then, though, CrowdStrike’s stock has gone up, and it’s up more than 40% so far this year. Bersey also said that the business still had “exposure to some of the fastest-growing markets in the security industry” and that AI gave the company bigger benefits in these areas.
