September sales were surprisingly resilient in the face of significantly higher gasoline prices. While this is reassuring, the question remains: 'How long can the consumer maintain the current spending rate given expectations for continued pressure from energy prices?
However, the importance of this transaction is that it provides Nordstrom with additional talent, expertise and access to the designer category. This should allow Nordstrom to capitalize on strong sales trends they have been experiencing over the past two years.
A slight premium to the market is about as far as the P/E multiple should go until management provides us with a clear action plan to lower controllable costs.
While the timing of this executive departure is not particularly good for Wal-Mart in light of the Coughlin situation, which exposed weakness inside the upper ranks of Wal-Mart management, the loss of Kevin Turner is not going to alter the course of the company.
Kevin Turner was seen as an up-and-comer within senior management ranks, so the departure does result in a loss of talent.
Outside of Wal-Mart, we expect the retailers under our coverage to hit the middle to upper end of the planned range laid out by managements.
We give Wal-Mart credit for its labor (cost) improvement in the quarter and hope this can continue.
We see this as a positive and a necessity given that the scope and complexity of Wal-Mart's U.S. business is too broad for a single executive to oversee anymore.
