If there were any questions if the US consumer was merely “strong” or “quite strong”, after the abysmal results from Macy’s first, and moments ago, Nordstrom, they should all be safely swept away now.
Any time a company starts its press release with a blatant mea culpa… run. Like in the case of Nordstrom: “The Company’s third quarter performance was below Company expectations, reflecting softer sales trends that were generally consistent across channels and merchandise categories.”
What happened was ugly: the company reported revenue of $3.24 billion, a miss to the $3.38 billion expected, and EPS of $0.42, nearly 50% below the expected $72. Q3 EBIT likewise crashed from $262 million to $151 Y/Y, as comp store sales of 0.9% were massively below the 3.6% expected.
Amusingly the retailers are unable to keep their lies straight – on one hand you have Macy’s blame the warm weather for plunging sales, and here you have JWN saying costs were among its best sellers: “Nordstrom comparable sales, which consist of full-line stores and Nordstrom.com, increased 0.3 percent. The top-performing merchandise category was Cosmetics. In addition, coats, younger customer-focused departments and dresses continued to reflect strength in Women’s Apparel.”
This post was published at Zero Hedge on 11/12/2015.
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