Wealthy Treated Themselves During The Holidays

Wealthy treated themselves during the holidays
NEW YORK (AP) — The rich treated themselves like royalty this Holiday Season. That spun the holidays into gold for Tiffany & Co. and other high-end Retailers. Wealthier shoppers traded up to more expensive gold and diamond jewelry from silver charms at Tiffany. At Saks and Neiman Marcus designer clothing and handbags were the hot holiday items. The strong reports are a big improvement from six months ago, when wealthy Americans got spooked by a Stock Market slide and cut back spending....

"Aspirational shoppers" to fuel '11 luxe rebound: execs
By Phil Wahba NEW YORK | Wed Jan 12, 2011 4:03pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street's continuing rally and the improving finances of America's wealthy will keep luxury spending's hot streak alive in 2011, and the less well heeled are also poised to join the party, top retail executives said. Rich shoppers have recovered far more quickly from the Recession than middle and lower income consumers, and are hitting stores in droves to snap up cashmere sweaters, designer dresses and diamond neckl...

"Aspirational shoppers" to fuel '11 luxe rebound: execs
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street's continuing rally and the improving finances of America's wealthy will keep luxury spending's hot streak alive in 2011, and the less well heeled are also poised to join the party, top retail executives said. Rich shoppers have recovered far more quickly from the Recession than middle and lower income consumers, and are hitting stores in droves to snap up cashmere sweaters, designer dresses and diamond necklaces at stores like Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus...

When flash mobs go bad
A flash mob is a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual act for a brief time and then disperse. Flash mobs are usually organized via Social Media or e-mails. Flash mob folklore says the first successful flash mob occurred in June 2003 in Manhattan and was staged by Bill Wasik, then senior editor of Harper's Magazine. At Wasik's behest, more than 100 people converged upon the ninth-floor rug department of Macy's Department Store, gathering around an expensiv...

After holiday splurge taste for spending returns
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- After some disciplined belt-tightening, shoppers who enjoyed a tasty splurgefest over the holidays seem ready to buy more than just T-shirts and socks in 2011. MasterCard Worldwide found that 61% of shoppers surveyed in mid-December said they don't plan to cut back on spending in 2011, even after their holiday bills come due. Email Print Comment For nearly two years, households have hunkered down through the economic slump, training themselves to shop only for basic neces...

Stronger earnings reports push stocks higher
(01-11) 10:17 PST NEW YORK, (AP) -- Strong financial reports from Alcoa and Sears helped push stock prices higher Tuesday. Alcoa Inc. easily beat the forecasts of Wall Street analysts when it reported earnings late Monday. The aluminum maker said it expects demand for its products to jump 12 percent this year, including gains of up to 11 percent in sales to automakers. Two major Retailers raised their earnings forecasts. Sears Holdings Corp. said it expects to earn up to $1.88 per share this y...

JCPenney Ranks Tops in Customer Service for Third Consecutive Year
PLANO, Texas, Jan. 12, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- For the third consecutive year, J. C. Penney Company, Inc. (NYSE: JCP) was recognized for its industry-leading Customer Service by ranking No. 1 among Department Store Retailers in the Customers' Choice survey released by the NRF Foundation and American Express. The positive results signify the impact JCPenney associates have made with customers as a result of the Company's CustomerFIRST initiative.  Launched in 2008, CustomerFIRST is a comprehens...

Stronger earnings reports push stocks higher
NEW YORK -- Strong profits from major Retailers and an upgrade to Hewlett-Packard helped push stocks higher on Tuesday. Sears Holdings Corp. and Tiffany & Co. raised their earnings forecasts. Sears said it could earn twice as much as analysts had predicted this year. Tiffany said brisk holiday sales would push earnings higher. "Consumer stocks have been left for dead," said Matt Lloyd, the chief investment Strategist at Advisors Asset Management. Consumer companies cut so many costs during ...

Beige Book Summary
Here are snippets from the Beige Book where The Economy “continued its moderate recovery.” Mfr’g “activity continued to recover” but construction was “weak.” “Retailers indicated that sales appeared to be higher in this Holiday Season than in ’09 and, in some cases, better than expectations.” “Non financial Service Sector contacts cited demand increases ranging from slight to ‘relatively strong.’” “Financ...

Sign Of A Dual-Track Economy Pt. 32964321 (WMT, TIF)
Email Sent! You have successfully emailed the post. Check out Tiffany's earnings from this morning. The high-end jewelry company basically knocked the lights out all around the world: Japan, Europe, North America, etc. It had a particularly strong Holiday Season It's also hiking its estimates for the full year. Of course this comes after several Retailers reported fairly mediocre earnings, and as our Chart Of The Day noted yesterday shares of companies like Wal-Mart have been monster losers on ...

US economy growing 'moderately'
In its latest Beige Book report, the US Central Bank said the Manufacturing sector continued to enjoy the biggest upturn, while Retailers saw a rise in sales over Christmas. The Fed said the housing sector remained subdued across the US. The data showed the US economy grew by 2.6% between July and September. However, this annualised level is too low to tackle the country's continuing high level of Unemployment. The most recent figures showed that the US jobless rate totalled 9.4% in Decembe...

Markets Close at 2-Year-High
Like this Story? Share it: (AP) Stocks are ending the day at their highest levels in more than two years after a successful bond auction in Portugal eased worries about Europe's Debt crisis. Financial firms led stocks higher Wednesday on hopes that banks would start raising their dividends this year. An analyst at Wells Fargo Securities issued a report saying banks' earnings should grow much faster than other companies this year, allowing them to raise dividends. The Dow Jones industrial aver...

Tiffany & Co. lifts full-year earnings guidance
NEW YORK (AP) — Jewelry company Tiffany & Co. is raising its full-year earnings guidance, buoyed by better-than-expected holiday sales. The news is more of a sign that shoppers are returning to luxury purchases. Such shopping waned during the Recession, when consumers worried about high Unemployment levels and The Economy curbed their spending. Tiffany CEO Michael Kowalski said in a statement Tuesday that the company saw strong sales of its fine jewelry collections, diamond engagement ...

Flexible Scheduling Makes Dollars and Sense
Flexible Scheduling Makes Dollars and Sense Tuesday, 01/11/2011 - 11:34 am by Joan Williams | Post a Comment Offering scheduling that fits employees’ needs will help companies be more competitive. Sunday’s New York Times reported that Accounting firms lead Corporate America in offering workplace flexibility. Employees can reduce their hours, take the summer off, take off a few years and then return to their prior jobs… whatever they need. And the firms are committed to ensur...

New Department Store Oedipus
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Retired Navy man collects scores of tiny timepieces
NORFOLK Time figures large in Roland Campbell's life. He spent 30 years in the Navy in some interesting places. He's been retired about as long. He lives in a house with an address that he gives as if it were a clock - on such and such street at "half past noon." So, it's a small surprise that time is a tiny thing to him, too. Little enough to fit in the palm of his hand. "This was the first one," Campbell said, reaching into a corner curio in his living room and taking out a...

What Went Wrong at Borders
Let me start with an unequivocal declaration: I hope Borders finds the means to avoid Bankruptcy, or worse, liquidation. The immediate consequence of a Borders default on what it owes publishers would be a cash short-fall of millions of dollars. Even the most profitable publishers have limited leeway to deal with months of unpaid bills. The irony is that the surge in E-book sales across many platforms, the popularity of reading devices and tablets, some effective re-tooling at Barnes & Noble...

Semiconductor Industry Growth to Slow in 2011
After two years of go-go growth in the semiconductor sector as customers restocked lean inventories, the industry is expected to post more modest growth in 2011, according to a research report by Ross Seymore, a Deutsche Bank Equity Research analyst. The chip industry is more likely to see revenue growth of 5% this year compared with over 30% last year, as it faces lower average selling prices for chips and the cyclical demand for semiconductors hits a lull. "The memory segment is likely to se...

Secondary Sources: Tax Reform, Oil Shocks, Keynesian Experiment
Yahoo! Buzz A roundup of economic news from around the Web. - Tax Reform: Howard Gleckman says that if President Obama ignores tax reform in his State of the Union, the issue is likely dead for the next two years. “It is highly unlikely that gap can be bridged before the next Elections, but if it can, it will take Obama and his bully pulpit to pull it off. No member of Congress, not even a chairman of a tax-writing committee, is going to unilaterally call for scaling back the mortgag...

The Four Most Dangerous Words To Your Portfolio
As we head into the New Year, media outlets ranging from CNBC to The Washington Post are full of financial commentary addressing this question. On the surface it seems like a logical query. But if you were getting ready to go out, would you ask “What Should I Wear?”… without describing where you are heading?  Of course not. The clothes you’d wear to shovel snow in will be very different from the clothes you’d wear to a Wedding. That’s why “How Shoul...

European stocks close lower after US jobs data
A board displays Germany's share index DAX. European stocks fell on Friday ... European stocks fell on Friday after the latest data showing weak US Job Creation dashed hopes for a strong Economic Recovery, dealers said. London's FTSE 100 index of leading shares closed down 0.59 percent at 5,984.33 points, while in Paris the CAC 40 dropped 1.0 percent to 3,865.58 points and in Frankfurt the DAX slid 0.48 percent to 6,947.84 points. Amsterdam dipped 0.13 percent, Milan fell 0.46 percent, Swiss s...

Heavy rains hit S.Africa's coal, maize exports
© Philip Viljoen, News24 User Flooding in and around Somerset West. Johannesburg - South African logistics group Transnet said on Wednesday Heavy Rains had disrupted its freight rail operations, affecting coal and maize exports. It said 18 trains of export coal were cancelled last week, and also affected an unspecified quantity of maize exports. "The lines remain closed until further notice," it said in a statement. International coal prices have soared following floods in Queensland, ...

Stocks head higher as worries about Europe ease
(01-12) 08:46 PST NEW YORK, (AP) -- Stocks are climbing in midday trading after a successful bond auction in Portugal eased worries about Europe's Debt crisis. Portugal borrowed $1.6 billion at a lower Interest Rate than many expected. That helped reassure investors concerned that Portugal may become the third European country to require a Bailout after Greece and Ireland. JPMorgan Chase & Co. rose 2.4 percent after the company's CEO, Jamie Dimon, told CNBC late Tuesday that the bank hopes to ...

Oxford Bioscience raises new fund
A few years ago I wrote off Oxford Bioscience Partners, a Boston-based Venture Capital firm focused on the Life Sciences space. Specifically, I included Oxford in a slideshow called The VC Walking Dead. The firm was displeased. It said that Oxford didn't meet the criteria for zombie-hood -- no dry powder to add new portfolio companies -- because it still had 33% of its $150 million fifth fund remaining (it originally tried to raise $400 million). My original info had come from a firm insider, bu...

Bailout police are circling
The Bailout police are circling to once and for all try to stem the spread of busted countries. European Debt and stocks are rallying after Japan’s interest announced yesterday and today’s story that the EU are discussing putting together a package for Portugal and will possibly buy Greek Debt in the secondary market in order to lower their financing costs. Portugal successfully sold 3 yr and 10 yr paper with yields higher than the previous one’s but not as bad as feared with...