Bill Dreher People Quotations

I think there continues to be a very strong psychological impact with people worried about their own safety and the safety of their families. I don't know what's going on with this flight, but whatever it turns out to be, it adds a significant psychological impact on consumer spending and on how the stocks behave.

Discount stores have really become an increasing portion of consumers' expenditures. Now there's talk of fluctuating energy prices, job layoffs, and people are looking for the best value possible. So we believe the discount stores are going to benefit disproportionately from the tax rebate. We expect Wal-Mart will be the leader in July.

People are being much more rational with their expenditures. That's why we're seeing these discount price retailers generating strong customer traffic and solid sales increases. And we expect strong earnings increases from them.

The same issues which are depressing the consumer confidence numbers are going to depress holiday sales, ... Christmas is going to show up this year as it shows up every year. The question is, how generous are people going to be? Are they going to go whole hog and return to the decadent spending levels of three or four years ago? No, clearly not. People are going to be buying toys, but how many presents they buy, how wide that circle of gift giving is really is in question.