My latest column is up at RealMoney. Here’s a quick preview:

At a presentation Tuesday, Saks (SKS) CEO Steve Sadove outlined the plans for long-term operating improvement, which includes growing operating margins to 8%. The plan requires:

• Outsized comparable store sales growth;
• Gross margin rate improvement; and
• Cost effective infrastructure.

However, according to a recent 8k filing, same store sales are down 0.1% for the two months ending April 5, and 2.9% for the five weeks ended April 7. In other words, the decline is accelerating.

Furthermore, Sadove said that luxury consumers were responding to promotional events and added that “you’re going to see more promotions over the course of the first part of this year” as retailers look to clear excess inventory. That likely means shrinking gross margins going forward, thus knocking the second leg out from under management’s plan.

Its price/book ratio, at 1.6 times, is double the department store industry average despite Saks’ below-average return on equity and average net margin. Macy’s (M) is already showing the performance levels Saks is only striving towards, and its price/book ratio is just 1.12 times.

If over the next five years Saks were to improve operations to Macy’s level, and get Macy’s valuation as a result, it would merit a $14.00 price target at the end of five years. To get a 10% annual return over that time, you’d need to start from a price of $8.75 - 33% below the current value.

Disclosure: At time of publication, William Trent holds no financial position in the companies mentioned in this article.

According to the Census Bureau ADVANCE MONTHLY SALES FOR RETAIL AND FOOD SERVICES:

The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for August, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $377.6 billion, an increase of 0.3 percent (±0.7%)* from the previous month and 3.7 percent (±0.8%) above August 2006. Total sales for the June through August 2007 period were up 3.8 percent (±0.5%) from the same period a year ago. The June to July 2007 percent change was revised from 0.3 percent (± 0.7%)* to 0.5 percent (± 0.2%).

The 3.7% year/year gain is an improvement from 3.2% in July. Still, looking at the longer-term trend it is too early to call an improvement. Furthermore, with CPI running 2.4% year/year the real retail growth is still pretty light.

I’m sticking to my previous characterization: Good but deteriorating.

EconomicData

With the consumer high on everyone’s mind, I thought it a good time to take a look at some companies exposed to discretionary spending to see what they are saying.

Estee Lauder’s (EL) three percent growth in North America was in line with the total retail sales growth recently reported. A big question is whether they are in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Although our most rapid growth will come from overseas, we are taking action to improve in the largest individual market, the U.S. However, we expect progress to be slow because of continued softness in department stores. We anticipate that the tough retail climate in department stores will last for at least the first half of your fiscal year. However, we remain committed to the channel. Department stores have unique offerings of designers and brands, and we firmly believe they will remain the cornerstone of U.S. prestige distribution.

That said, we also note that we now generate approximately 34% of our net sales in North American prestige department stores down from 46% five years ago.

(Excerpt from full EL conference call transcript)

Starbucks (SBUX) grew significantly faster than the average retailer, but not nearly so fast as its investors have come to expect.

Company-operated U.S. retail revenue growth of 19% was driven by the opening of 1,116 new company-operated stores in the last 12 months. During the third quarter specifically, we opened 285 new company-operated locations.

Turning to comparable store sales growth for the U.S. segment, the third quarter saw trends similar to those in the second quarter. The average value per transaction increased 3% while traffic grew less than 1%, resulting in a 4% comparable store sales growth. During the quarter, sales of our core handcrafted espresso-based beverages and premium food offerings were the primary drivers of the growth in same-store sales.

(Excerpt from full SBUX conference call transcript)

The 3% per-transaction growth, again, was just average for US retail. What is still somewhat impressive is growing store traffic at all (even just 1%) while opening new stores at the rate of 3 or 4 per day. Still, they are noticing some shifts in their customer’s habits.

It’s clear that there is an increased competitive environment. There is an increased pressure on consumers from macroeconomic factors. But in all of those areas, we believe that we have a competitive advantage of being the coffee experts and being able to generate incremental traffic as we go forward, particularly in our core beverages, our core espresso beverages and the things that are uniquely Starbucks.

(Excerpt from full SBUX conference call transcript)

The credit crunch is hitting Nordstrom (JWN).

Approximately $14 million of the bad debt reserve is non-comparable due to the previous mentioned accounting treatment for our co-branded Visa receivables that did not occur in the prior year. The remaining $8 million of the incremental provision resulted from growth in both the Visa and proprietary card receivables ahead of plan and from changes to assumed repayment rates versus last year.

These changes stem from observed increases in early stage delinquencies.

(Excerpt from full JWN conference call transcript)

However, the company expects to gain market share.

Our same-store sales expectation is now 5% to 6% for the year, up from 3% to 4% based on our year-to-date performance combined with our plans for the remaining two quarters of the year.

(Excerpt from full JWN conference call transcript)

I think the general consensus is that consumers are feeling some pressure but not enough to really keep them from spending. These conference calls seem to confirm that consensus opinion.

Disclosure: Author is long Starbucks (SBUX) at time of publication.

I decided to take a look at what some of the largest companies by revenue are saying about their business.

All looks well at General Electric (GE - Annual Report).

The second quarter orders were a record, up 32%; we grew our backlog. We’ve got very strong global demand, up 21% in revenue. We continue our focus on margin expansion. Year-to-date we’re up 120 basis points; we’re up 70 basis points for the quarter. This is a big initiative inside the company, and one that we’re committed to….

Globalization and emerging markets, GE is very advantaged in these markets and these are just booming right now.

Infrastructure continues to be a real solid point for the company. Demographics as it pertains to both global growth and some of the action in GE Money is great. All of our focus on ecomagination, energy and investment/reinvestment is very solid.

If you look at what’s the same, we still see high liquidity in the marketplace. The U.S. consumer seems fine. Unemployment is at low levels, and we’re not seeing really any warning signs with the U.S. consumer….

On balance, we think we’re well-positioned in this environment. There’s no big surprises, and we feel like we’re in good shape as we look at the rest of the year.

(Excerpt from full GE conference call transcript)

Exxon Mobil (XOM - Annual Report) describes several reasons why investing in new projects can be risky, which helps explain why they haven’t invested as much as some would like (and why prices for oil are likely to remain high.)

Although increased volumes from the recent project start-ups in Russia, West Africa, and Qatar more than offset natural field decline, liquids production fell by 34,000 barrels per day, or 1% from the same quarter last year due to entitlement and OPEC quota effects in Africa….

ExxonMobile’s affiliate in Venezuela was not able to reach the agreement on the formation of a mixed enterprise and on June 27, 2007, the government took over our interest in the Serene rural project….

(Excerpt from full XOM conference call transcript)

And they didn’t even get to hurricanes, Iran, Iraq or terrorism. Makes you want to run out and drill an exploratory well, doesn’t it?

General Motors (GM) hopes to build a house of BRIC:

It was actually a very good quarter for other regions. Strong growth outside North America in the quarter, adjusted profitability of close to $700 million, $1.1 billion year-to-date. Revenue up 16%, share up 0.2%. I remind you our revenue does not include our business in China, as we carry it on the equity method so you would not see the growth in our business in China showing up in revenue. So this is really only on a consolidated basis.

Europe reported its best quarterly results since the second quarter of 1996, strong structural cost performance and favorable pricing. LAAM continues to leverage, it can only be termed explosive growth, reported the best quarter in ten years in both revenue and profitability. GMH reported a record second quarter adjusted net income with continued growth in China, India, and South Korea, as well as some improved performance in Australia….

Russia is a very fast-growing emerging market. 2.5 million units. It’s actually fast approaching one of the largest markets in Europe, actually, getting very close to France, Spain, Italy in terms of its size; and the U.K., as you can see. Our market share is up almost 4 points in Russia year-to-date.

Actually, we’re running behind in Brazil, we’re trailing in terms of market share in Brazil, but the driver of that is the market is up 50% in terms of its SAAR in the quarter. I would say the challenge in LAAM today is to keep up with the markets growth….

China, you can see the SAAR is up from 6.7 million to 8.3 million units. Our market share has not kept pace, so we’ve had some competitive pressures there, but nonetheless we’re still running pretty strong in China.

(Excerpt from full GM conference call transcript)

However, as if they needed any more challenges, they have subprime exposure that needs to be worked off.

ResCap lost over $900 million in the first quarter. We said that in the second quarter we expected that losses would narrow considerably and we expected better results. We did see that. Nonetheless, the $254 million is still a substantial challenge, it’s the largest business challenge for the GMAC management team in terms of restoring that business to where it needs to be. But it’s good to see the declining losses. We have sharply reduced our non-prime production, our non-prime exposure across warehouse lending, across some of our builder businesses. You saw run-off in the non-prime portfolio held for investment. We expect our run-off in the held for investment portfolio to be about $15 billion this year. So we’re basically reducing our exposure to non-prime and at the same time, we are seeing increased service fee income and lower structural costs.

So I would say the challenges continue here, but the first step in addressing the challenges is to stop deteriorating.

(Excerpt from full GM conference call transcript)

Citigroup (C - Annual Report) is also feeling the heat.

Net credit losses were up by $259 million, driven primarily by our global consumer business.

In consumer, key drivers are higher balances from organic portfolio growth and acquisitions; continued deterioration in the second mortgage portfolio; and the impact of the gray zone in Japan. In markets and banking, we continued to see a stable credit environment.

The third component is a $465 million net increase in the loan-loss reserve. There were two major drivers of this increase. First in the U.S. Cards business, the increase was driven by a change in the estimate of loan losses that are inherent in the portfolio. It is important to note that the underlying credit metrics have remained largely stable in our cards business. This reserve build reflects our focus on staying ahead of the visible credit trends, by considering as many factors as possible in establishing our reserves.

Second, in the international cards business, portfolio growth and seasoning and the impact of recent acquisitions resulted in higher reserve levels.

(Excerpt from full C conference call transcript)

Wal-Mart’s (WMT - Annual Report) customers are feeling the pinch.

Consumers today are pressed by a number of factors. Higher energy, higher gas prices and higher interest rates are all stretching their paychecks. Families with school-aged children are expected to spend more than $500 this year on back-to-school products. Our price campaign is designed to make a difference for families by saving them money where it counts most: on items like backpacks, pencils and socks. We’re encouraged by the response we’re seeing in back-to-school in August. 14 states have tax-free days during the start of this month. In addition, several states have delayed some school openings and we expect the trend we have seen with other seasons to continue. People are buying closer to the event.

As reported by other retailers, we’re experiencing similar trends in soft sales of home products driven by the slow down in housing. In addition, Wal-Mart’s softness in the home and apparel categories has been compounded by the difficulties we have had this past year and have shared with you. The result is that home and apparel remain soft through the second quarter. We’re starting to see some improvement in certain home categories this month and we are pleased so far with the sales results and customer response to the test of the New Home that we are piloting in several markets.

We continue to see pressure in all areas of apparel and continue to take pricing actions needed to sell through our inventory. We’re seeing some positive trends in sleepwear and men’s sports apparel. In the children’s areas, licensed apparel is picking up momentum and as I mentioned earlier on, we do expect our kid’s apparel categories to rebound this month.

(Excerpt from full WMT conference call transcript)

I guess it is not surprising that the top companies are seeing an outlook as mixed as that of the overall economy.

Disclosure: Author is long IShares MSCI Japan Index (EWJ) at time of publication.

One question I have had regarding DELL’s (DELL) recent slide is whether the horse that got them here has gone lame. In the past, DELL’s model was more efficient because declining prices meant that having a low inventory and no retail markup carried a large enough advantage to offset the cost of shipping the PC. Now, with the PC selling for $500 rather than $1,500 the shipping costs per unit are much higher and may actually make bulk shipments to retailers more cost effective than individual shipments to buyers.

When Dell’s first test was to open retail stores that were nothing more than showrooms I thought they were missing the point. The beauty of a direct model is that you can customize things the way you want, while the beauty of a retail store is that you can walk out a few minutes later with product in hand. Retail stores without instant gratification equal nothing more than a real estate expense. Dell soon came to the same conclusion.

Things are different now. Dell to sell 2 desktop PC models in 3000 Wal-Marts:

Computer marker Dell Inc. plans to start selling personal computers at 3,000 Wal-Mart (WMT - Annual Report) stores in the United States and Canada as of June 10, launching a major drive to sell its PCs through retailers, a company spokesman said on Thursday.

You don’t get any more retail than Wal-Mart. This should be a true test as to whether the sands have shifted in favor of mass distribution.

Small Cap Watch List (Track at Marketocracy) member Aeropostale (ARO) reported strong March sales and upped their guidance.

Aeropostale, Inc. (NYSE: ARO), a mall-based specialty retailer of casual and active apparel for young women and men, today announced that total net sales for the five-week period ended April 7, 2007 increased 31.5% to $124.8 million, from $94.9 million for the five-week period ended April 1, 2006. Same store sales for the month increased 15.9%, compared to the corresponding five-week period ended April 8, 2006.

While the Company said they saw a benefit to comparable store sales in March due to the early timing of Easter, they also raised guidance for the quarter, which ends in April:

The company now expects net earnings in the range of $0.22-$0.23 per diluted share, versus its previously issued guidance of $0.19-$0.21 per diluted share. This compares to net earnings of $0.15 per diluted share in the first quarter last year.

Mid Cap Watch List (Track at Marketocracy) member Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) also reported strong results, and said nothing whatsoever about Easter:

Abercrombie & Fitch (NYSE: ANF) today reported net sales of $331.2 million for the five-week period ended April 7, 2007, a 29% increase over net sales of $256.7 million for the five-week period ended April 1, 2006. March comparable store sales increased 7% for the five-week period ended April 7, 2007, compared to the five-week period ended April 8, 2006. Total Company direct-to-consumer net sales increased 47% to $17.7 million for the five-week period ended April 7, 2007, compared to the five-week period ended April 1, 2006.Year-to-date, the Company reported a net sales increase of 20% to $537.8 million from $449.5 million last year. Comparable store sales increased 1% for the year-to-date period. Year-to-date, total Company direct-to-consumer net sales increased 41% to $29.8 million.

By contrast, Target said yesterday that while March results were very strong, it expects sales at its stores open at least a year to decline 2 percent to 4 percent in April due to the earlier timing of Easter.

Today it was Cato (CTR) and others saying March sales were favorably impacted by the shift of Easter to April 8 this year versus April 16 last year, while April sales are expected to be unfavorably impacted by this shift.

So, are teen retailers insulated from Easter fluctuations or are the other companies just using Easter as an excuse?

In some ways, having a one-letter ticker symbol is considered prestigious - a sign that the company was able to stake an early claim on the stock market real estate. Whether true or not, Federated Department Stores is after one of the few remaining available letters following its planned name change to Macy’s.

M Is Not For Microsoft - Forbes.com

“M” was once thought to be reserved by the New York Stock Exchange for Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ), which is listed on the Nasdaq Composite as “MSFT.”The letter was available, so that made it fair game for Federated, which has traded under the ticker symbol “FD” on the New York Stock Exchange since 1992.

Of the more than 3,100 companies whose stocks trade on the NYSE, the following one-letter symbols are available: G, I, J, L, N, P, U, V, W and Z.

Federated Chief Executive Terry Lundgren made it sound like it’s a positive change in corporate strategy rather than just a sexier, more attractive letter.

“Changing the parent company name to Macy’s Inc.,” Lundgren said in a news release, “while trading our shares under the ‘M’ ticker symbol will make it simple and clear for all investors to understand we are a brand-driven and consumer-oriented company.”

So just how prestigious is the honor? You be the guide as we scroll through the list of existing one-letter tickers. (We promise we are going only by memory - for the CNBC Trivia crowd, have some fun and try to fill in the blanks or catch us out if we are wrong!

A - Agilent

B - ?

C - Citigroup (formerly Chrysler until the Daimler thingy)

D - ?

E - ?

F - Ford

G - Not in use

H - ?

I - Not in use

J - used to be Jackpot, Inc. Were they bought?

K - Kellogg

L - Not in use

M - Soon to be Macy’s

N - Was Inco

O - ?

P - Not in use

Q - Qwest Communications

R - Ryder System

S - Sprint Nextel (used to be Sears)

T - AT&T

U - Not in use

V - Not in use

W - Not in use

X - US Steel
Y - ?
Z - Not in use

So… three telecom companies and a bunch of old line firms. You decide how prestigious it is, and comment below on our shortcomings.

NCR recently announced plans to spin out its Teradata data warehousing business. Already some are speculating it will be taken over - possibly before it even hits the public markets.

Teradata: is it buyout bait? - Blogging Stocks

The deal should take six to nine months to complete. However, according to a report from The Daily Deal [a paid service], Teradata may not even hit the public markets. That is, it could be bought-out.By private equity firms? Well, given Teradata’s cash flows – and long-term contracts – it would be attractive to a financial buyer. But, the company would also make a great fit for major tech companies, such as Oracle (ORCL - Annual Report), IBM (IBM - Annual Report) and even Hewlett-Packard (HPQ - Annual Report). All of these companies have been quite acquisitive.

In all likelihood, NCR considered the potential of a sale before announcing the spin-out. However, any sale would likely result in capital gains (and therefore taxes) while a spin-off could be tax free to shareholders. Furthermore, if the spin-out is achieved buyers would have to wait two years to get their hands on it, or the taxes would be due retroactively. So we are betting against a deal, though it is a possibility.

Furthermore, we would scratch HP from the potential acquiror list. As noted in a recent InformationWeek Article (Inside HP’s Data Warehousing Gamble, January 8, 2007), HP CEO Mark Hurd ran NCR (and the Teradata division) and CIO Randy Mott installed Teradata systems at both Wal-Mart (WMT - Annual Report) and Dell (DELL).  Yet despite their extensive experience they chose to develop an in-house data warehousing system, Neoview. The InformationWeek article notes:

Mott says HP considered Teradata for its [internal] data warehouse, as well as a “go to market partnership” with the company.

But HP engineers had been developing data warehousing capabilities… and Mott needed to give that project a look and determine quickly if HP’s in-house technology was ready for wide use. For four months in late 2005, his team ran test loads in the lab. The [HP] system worked to Mott’s satisfaction.

So while there may indeed be a buyout in Teradyne’s future, we are betting it occurs in three years or so, and doesn’t involve Hewlett Packard.

We have written so often on the overcapacity in flat panel displays that our regular readers are sick of hearing about it. So today we’ll let others do the talking.
TheStreet.com on Applied Materials (AMAT - Annual Report):

Applied Materials’ profit surged 81% in its fiscal fourth quarter, but the results came up short of Wall Street expectations.

And in a subsequent conference the call with analysts, the world’s No. 1 vendor of chipmaking equipment said its fiscal 2007 year would get off to a slow start.

CFO George Davis singled out flat-panel-display manufacturing as the prime culprit for the slowdown.

Barron’s Tech Trader Daily on Circuit City (CC):

Circuit City has been holding meetings with the Street recently in which it is warning that average selling prices for flat-panel televisions are falling faster than the company had expected.

Associated Press on Wal-Mart (WMT - Annual Report):

“We are implementing our most aggressive pricing strategy ever across core categories, such as toys and electronics,” Scott said in a prerecorded phone message.

John Menzer, head of Wal-Mart U.S. stores, said there were “huge sales increases” among the discounted toys and in some electronics.

“We’re seeing a big growth in our new categories such as flat panel TV’s, MP3 players, laptops and cell phones.

MarketWatch on Home Depot (HD - Annual Report):

Home Depot Inc. on Tuesday said that it would be “opportunistic” in selling consumer electronics this holiday season, as it looks to drive sales during the critical shopping period.

On its third-quarter earnings conference call, the home-improvement retailer said that it planned to use its large-scale buying power to offer low prices on consumer electronics such as plasma and flat-screen television sets.

The only surprise in all this is why anyone would be surprised. From one end of the food chain (equipment manufacturers) to the other (retail) the story is all about too much capacity and faster than expected price reductions.

Personal income in July was $11,015.2, up 0.5% from June. Nominal personal consumption expenditures (PCE) rose 0.8%, while real PCE increased 0.5%. Nominal disposable personal income (DPI) rose 0.7% while real DPI increased 0.3%. The personal savings rate as a percentage of DPI was -0.9% in July.
The Good

Nordstrom

Abercrombie and Fitch (ANF)

Bebe, Inc (BEBE)

The Bad 

Gap Stores (GPS)

Jos. A. Bank (JOSB) (Watch List)

Pacific Sunwear (PSUN)

JC Penney (JCP)

The Verdict

Slowdown? Maybe. But if you have the right merchandise consumers will still spend more than they earn.