Maven: Unusual Bedfellows

This mess has not yet taken any toll on H-P's stock price.

This was because of the media's initial assumption that the story would blow over quickly, combined with the recent overall strength of the market.

But I would stay clear of the stock until this long, strange trip of a story plays out.

Jeff Matthews sells himself short, in a sense, in his blog. The Business Press Maven, who likes to read Matthews, was busy agreeing with a recent point Matthews made about the look of Dollar General(DG Quote) stores.

To wit: They look lame. As in: totally.

I had just been paying attention to the look of these stores, figuring that their time in the economic cycle may have come. But the comeback of Dollar General has been a frequently anticipated event on Wall Street, and one that has not come to fruition in many a year.

Spurred by the latest buy report that mentioned "store-related enhancements" (holy jargon, Batman), Matthews took a little road trip across the South to see a half-dozen stores.

He quotes Mick Jagger saying they'd make a grown man cry (I agree) and then apologized for not conducting a more scientific search (I disagree). Appraising retailers is as much art as science, and though The Business Press Maven usually wants journalists to use bigger samples than they do, six is fine when talking about a retail chain.

If you can't, for example, come to the conclusion after seeing six Gaps(GPS Quote) that their concept is careworn, well, you won't be able to at 12.

The Wall Street Journal Asia reports that Wal-Mart(WMT Quote) will launch a credit card in China, probably the first issued by a foreign retailer.

And talk about doing something new and risky in retailing: A big city department store is actually building a new location.

This hasn't happened in a while, but Women's Wear Daily reports on the coming (Sept. 28) opening of a 330,000-square-foot Bloomingdales in San Francisco.

Jeff, in this case a one-store sample is scientifically valid.