Ken Perkins Quotations

We've already seen some big disappointments in both Limited and Ann Taylor. Up front, retailers are also facing their most difficult hurdle of the year in the form of a 6.1 percent gain racked up in September last year.

We are going to see the effect of higher energy prices trickle up to the middle-income consumers.

We're getting some very good results today despite the very difficult 6.7 percent February same-store sales comparisons from last year.

When you say a school and a district is going to be judged on this, and then it's not a valid test, that doesn't seem right.

One obvious explanation (for the weakness) is that investors are aware that Best Buy faces much tougher sales comparisons, particularly in the second half of the year. Looking at the numbers, second-quarter sales were up 7.8 percent, third-quarter sales rose 5.8 percent.

Next month is the first time the company marks the anniversary of positive sales comparisons. From here on, the comparisons get increasingly difficult.

Fourth-quarter retail earnings are expected to grow 13.5 percent. That's below last year's growth and could come down further if we see plenty of promotions.

If the housing market just levels off, which seems to be happening right now, we'll be OK. But if there's a precipitous drop, then spending could really fall.

We've finally got a great February. The first set of numbers indicates that this was a blowout month with the kind of sales gains that we haven't seen in a while.

Is Wal-Mart also hurting its business? I think cheaper products at the discount stores did have a marginal impact on the company's sales.

January is turning out to be a real surprise to the positive. So far the same-store numbers that we're getting aren't bad at all.

The American consumer has been particularly resilient over the last year plus, ... They're finding ways to spend.

That's well above the long term average of 54 percent beating and 42 percent falling short of expectations.

We haven't seen this kind of positive sales performance since we began tracking the group in November 2000. Fourth-quarter profits for department stores rose 5 percent compared to a 1 percent rise a year ago. We've now has a couple of quarters of improving trends.

We don't have an opinion or more importantly a vote one way or another. We're not thrilled with it ... but it's essentially up to the analysts.

The deceleration in earnings growth is a significant concern. Techs are up against steep comparisons in the second half of this year and the first half of next year,

Best Buy traditionally has been the primary player here and taking share very aggressively from some of the other players in the space, but Circuit City looks to have held their own here this holiday season. The discounters have tried to get into the space. Wal-Mart's been very aggressive in moving in there.

Earnings are going to have to really go up in order for valuations to look attractive. Tech earnings are going to be strong but it's already more or less priced into the stocks,

There's a deep concern that if this thing goes on, a lot of Christmas merchandise hitting the docks can't be transferred.

The tough head winds are definitely there but March was still a decent month,

Sales really carried through at the end of the season, particularly for the mall-based stores. Some of the strength probably came from retailers really aggressively marketing and being really promotional.

Sales of men's apparel has been lagging for some time. Men usually don't shop as frequently as women. When they do, there's only so much of casual clothes men really need.

Profits are on the rebound but is it sustainable? Given the extent of the previous bubble in tech, the recovery should be slower. There's a whiff of a pickup in business spending but not enough to hang your hat on just yet.

After a stellar September for retailers, it was a given to expect some weakness last month. But this is pretty amazing. I don't think I've seen this much red on the board.

August is the big month because that's when the bulk of the back-to-school revenues are generated, ... But we got some very positive signs in July, especially with apparel sales showing the strongest monthly gains. Apparel sales are important because they provide the first indication of how consumers are spending their discretionary income.

There were a number of factors that dampened consumer spending,

They're going to have to watch the bottom line and the margins very closely, ... This holiday season, retailers are going to be fighting for customers and fewer discretionary dollars.

It's not the greatest macro environment to be going into. The psyche of the consumer has taken a beating the last couple of months,

Consumers really felt the pinch of higher gas prices and job growth is stagnant.

The numbers look pretty good so far. We are seeing more surprises to the upside and this is a nice reversal of the trend that we had expected last month. Even among those retailers who missed our forecast, not many of them blamed gas prices for it.

Economic conditions have improved significantly from March last year when commerce was impeded for much of the month by the run up to the Iraq war. People do appear to be shopping more.

Everybody is waiting to see whether they can carry the momentum they've built this year into next year despite the tough holiday period.

It was a complete egg that was laid there. By all accounts, they got killed in apparel.

These numbers are not good. As one analyst put it, October will be the nightmare before Christmas.

That's a pretty long stretch, and investors are concerned that earnings could take a hit unless sales improve.

The consumer has not run out of gas yet, provided the job market continues to remain fairly decent.

If numbers are better than expected and the news is good for second quarter outlooks, then we could rally on that. But I think the results are pretty much baked into the cake here.

I'm concerned that Wal-Mart could be the harbinger of some broader weakness. With everything they had going for them, Wal-Mart still came in at the low end of a not-very-aggressive plan. I wouldn't be surprised if we'll see more companies miss expectations than beat expectations.

If the price of oil remains between $45 to $50 a barrel, that's not a good sign especially if we experience a very cold winter. Heating oil prices will go up and that's likely to dampen consumer spending during the winter months.

If results are in line with expectations, that would mean the season was okay. It wouldn't be a blowout, but it wouldn't be a disaster either -- just sort of ho-hum. So, we'll see what happens.

Instead of hearing about gas woes, we actually saw a handful of companies raise their earnings estimates. That was a nice surprise.

Clearly falling gas prices coupled with the late arrival of cooler weather in the last two weeks of October gave a boost to consumer spending.

High energy prices coupled with uncertainty regarding future economic growth and the job situation appear to be disproportionately impacting low-end consumers and hurting sales.

You could still argue that they are still too bullish,

The first two quarters of last year were OK but not stellar. If we still have double digit increases in earnings during the third quarter, that would be good news.

The market is in terrible shape and the prospects for growth are not good,

The last time Wal-Mart had a monthly same-store sales gain that low was back in December of 2000, with a 0.3 percent rise. Prior to that was in April of 1996, with a 0.2 percent gain. That was probably another year when Easter got pushed into April.