By William Trent, CFA of Stock Market BeatA couple of months ago, we addressed the prospects of slowing consumer spending by saying, “Slowdown? Maybe. But if you have the right merchandise consumers will still spend more than they earn.”Now we get a similar assessment from CNNMoney:Moreover, since consumer purchases fuel two-thirds of the economy, these two months provide a vital temperature-taking of the overall health of the nation’s economy.Any significant slowdown in consumer spending immediately raises concerns that the economy as a whole will likely follow.So how do things look so far? Despite the retail picture being a little muddy this year, analysts for the most part seem to agree that consumers are not yet shying away from shopping.They’re just becoming more cautious and more picky about where they shop.Betting against the consumer is always a long shot. Sometimes they come in, but usually they don’t. Given the housing weakness, this may be the year for it. However, it’s not something we’ll put a lot of money on.The author may hold a position in the securities discussed. The author’s current holdings are as follows: Long: Intuit (INTU) put options; Nasdaq 100 (QQQQ) put options; Bookham (BKHM; Ballard Power (BLDP); Syntax Brillian (BRLC); CMGI (CMGI); Genentech (DNA); Ion Media Networks (ION); Lion’s Gate (LGF); Three Five Systems (TFS); Adobe Systems (ADBE) call options; Ceradyne (CRDN); IShares Japan (EWJ); StreetTracks Gold (GLD); Starbucks (SBUX); U.S. Oil Fund (USO); Plantronics (PLT) call options; Short: Lion’s Gate (LGF) call options; Dell (DELL) put options; Ceradyne (CRDN) call options; Plantronics (PLT) put options.http://stockmarketbeat.com/blog1/
Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Target: Looking for some holiday cheer – Nov. 14, 2006 (WMT)(HD)(TGT)
Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.
McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.
His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.
A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.
TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.
McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.
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