Comments on The Peridot Capitalist: The Consumer is Far From Dead...

In the light of the just announced CircuitCity res...

2007-12-21T12:15:00.000-05:00

In the light of the just announced CircuitCity results, the BestBuy data does not look that impressive.

It seems they were able to gain on CircuitCity's back and the combined BestBuy/CC results, it seems, do confirm the decline in customer spending.

You're right, I should have noted that the sales n...

2007-12-21T11:02:00.000-05:00

You're right, I should have noted that the sales numbered are a bit inflated due to the calendar shift. Nonetheless, analysts had that baked into their estimates, so it does not negate the strength of Best Buy's report.

Unfortunately, because the just completed quarter ...

2007-12-20T14:55:00.000-05:00

Unfortunately, because the just completed quarter contained an extra week (an important one too: the one right after Thanksgiving) it is hard to interpret.

Excluding that extra week, they said same store sales were up 3.6%. Electronics comparable sales were up only 2.4% - including the extra week. The strongest segment was video games and consoles due to a lot of new releases.

I think we'll have to look at the 3rd and 4th quarters combined and compare them to last year to really get a good feel for how their business is doing.