Costco Warning Kicks Off the Retail Sale

Oh my, Costco (COST - commentary - Cramer's Take). I didn't expect that one. That's the best -- it's a shocker. I can't recall how many years it has been since I have seen the words "well below" and "Costco" together.

You can see how it happened: Costco held out. They didn't raise price. Almost everyone else is raising price and many are losing customers -- look at Safeway (SWY - commentary - Cramer's Take) or Supervalu (SVU - commentary - Cramer's Take). But two held out: Costco and Wal-Mart (WMT - commentary - Cramer's Take).

When you lump in the ridiculous price hikes that Costco had to take in its gasoline business, you see that it simply wasn't making much money selling anything.

I am flummoxed by this. COST is a great volume buyer, and it has always, always figured out ways to make money. In many ways, this blowup is precisely timed. There's no one left to blow up but Wal-Mart, which by dint of its size can actually get the best deals from its suppliers -- better than everyone else, including Costco now.

Cramer: Retail Stocks Worth Revisiting

Yesterday I wrote that you had to start looking at retail. It is just too hated.

I was a day premature.

Today is the day it will be too hated.

At the time of publication, Cramer was long Wal-Mart.

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