Two Giant Retail Chains Say Sales Are Slumping

[babylonsister]

Two Giant Retail Chains Say Sales Are Slumping


By MICHAEL BARBARO
Published: August 15, 2007

Wal-Mart and Home Depot sneezed yesterday. Will the economy catch a cold?

Home Depot said its earnings for the year would fall because of the weak housing market, a forecast that alarmed Wall Street.

Wal-Mart has lowered prices, but the strategy has hurt its profit margins. Its quarterly earnings were below expectations.

The two companies, the nation’s largest retailers and bellwethers for consumer spending, reported earnings disappointments for the second quarter and predicted an even bumpier year ahead because of higher energy costs and a sagging housing market.

The sober forecasts reverberated across Wall Street, sending the Dow Jones industrial average and the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index down by nearly 2 percent, with the Dow dropping more than 200 points. Shares of both Wal-Mart and Home Depot fell around 5 percent.

Home Depot also said that the proposed sale of its supply business, for $11 billion, could fall through because of trouble in the credit markets, potentially forcing the retailer to shrink a $23 billion stock buyback.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/15/business/15shop.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1187183014-MGGRNRn1NuKEuPY2nx9wcQ&oref=slogin

[MADem]

1. Well, no shit. It's going in the gas tank and for food. NT

[Bitwit1234]

2. AND jobs are going overseas.

Oh course big business is cleaning up because they are making money from the jobs they sent overseas. But that is not going to last long. If the middle class in this country continues to loose good paying jobs, nobody will be able to buy anything. And the countries overseas are buying so.....................where will they get their money.

[Deja Q]

6. Quite.

Given the number of media outlets, MSM ones, saying "Lower profits in America are compensated by higher ones in _____", anyone who says China and India are not being exploited is wrong. It's as simple as that.

[AX10]

3. Why aren't they listening to Bush? The economy's great!

:sarcasm:

[Lint Head]

4. Republican Herbert Hoover marched us into the last

great depression. I guess history is repeating itself with the current boob re-pubic-rat in the Lilly White House. :dem:

[marmar]

5. A cold? It's going to be like SARS in a minute.....

:scared:

[SoCalDem]

7. Pretty sad when you have to put $2 plastic flipflops on the half-price rack

and people still won't buy them :(

[BlooInBloo]

10. It's hard to cut price enough for this....

[valerief]

8. They should tailor their product to the very wealthy who are getting all the tax breaks. nt

[alfredo]

9. Give a living wage and people will have money to spend on

items that are not related to survival.

[Liberal In Texas]

11. Well, I stopped shopping at HD when I found out how much they were supporting the GOPers.

The thousands I spend on DIY and other home projects now go mostly to Lowes and other smaller suppliers.

Wal Mart? Haven't set foot in the place in years. I won't support their predatory business practices, flooding the country with even more Chinese junk, and their being complicit in slave-labor. Not to mention the way they pay and treat their employees.

And I tell a lot of people these things. Maybe, just maybe, more and more people are voting with their $.