Cramer: Retail Is Alive and Kicking
Jim Cramer's post on retail appeared Wednesday on RealMoney. Click here for a free trial, and enjoy incisive commentary all day, every day.
The most maligned industry out there might be retail. No matter what happens to the companies, people think the news is bad. These people are stuck in the past.
In the past few days, we have had fabulous reports from
VF Corp
(VFC) - Get Report
,
Perry Ellis
(PERY) - Get Report
(mentioned in the
columnist conversation) and
Phillips Van Heusen
(PVH) - Get Report
. These three pretty much run the full spectrum in clothing retail. But
The North Face
,
Arrow
and
Perry Ellis
seem to mean nothing to people.
To me, they are terrific barometers. So is
Jones Apparel
(JNY)
, another company that last week reported a nifty quarter, which was obscured by some one-time hits.
Darden
(DRI) - Get Report
and
Whole Foods
( WFMI) are two other plays I consider quintessentially retail. Whole Foods in itself is a sign of a healthy consumer because it is as expensive as all getout to go there; yet, its take-home business is booming. But it isn't
so booming
that it's hurting the Olive Gardens and the Red Lobsters of the world.
Or, consider
Panera
(PNRA)
,
Chipotle
(CMG) - Get Report
and
Cheesecake
(CAKE) - Get Report
. These are moderately priced places, and you could argue that strength there doesn't mean much. I say, "Wait a second, these places saw slowdowns when things got tough; the slowdown is over."
Speaking of places that saw slowdowns, how about
Abercrombie & Fitch
(ANF) - Get Report
, the quintessential overpriced teen retailer? Even this company has its act together now.
I can throw in a whole bunch that haven't recently reported,
Tiffany
(TIF) - Get Report
and
Nordstrom
(JWN) - Get Report
being the best examples.
Also, do you think we would get all of those upgrades of
Home Depot
(HD) - Get Report
if business wasn't improving? How about that great recent number from
Costco
(COST) - Get Report
, which is propelling that stock up nicely?
The simple conclusion: Retail is alive and well. Once again, because unemployment is high, we dismiss it, or we say it is an unimportant time of the year, or that a calendar shift helped the results.
I say, give me a break. Things are better. That's all there is to it.
At the time of publication, Cramer was long Costco and Home Depot. Jim Cramer, co-founder and chairman of TheStreet.com, writes daily market commentary for TheStreet.com's RealMoney and runs the charitable trust portfolio,
. He also participates in video segments on TheStreet.com TV and serves as host of CNBC's "Mad Money" television program.
Mr. Cramer graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College, where he was president of The Harvard Crimson. He worked as a journalist at the Tallahassee Democrat and the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, covering everything from sports to homicide before moving to New York to help start American Lawyer magazine. After a three-year stint, Mr. Cramer entered Harvard Law School and received his J.D. in 1984. Instead of practicing law, however, he joined Goldman Sachs, where he worked in sales and trading. In 1987, he left Goldman to start his own hedge fund. While he worked at his fund, Mr. Cramer helped start Smart Money for Dow Jones and then, in 1996, he co-founded TheStreet.com, of which he is chairman and where he has served as a columnist and contributor since. In 2000, Mr. Cramer retired from active money management to embrace media full time, including radio and television.
Mr. Cramer is the author of "
Confessions of a Street Addict
," "You Got Screwed," "Jim Cramer's Real Money," "Jim Cramer's Mad Money," "Jim Cramer's Stay Mad for Life" and, most recently, "Jim Cramer's Getting Back to Even." He has written for Time magazine and New York magazine and has been featured on CBS' 60 Minutes, NBC's Nightly News with Brian Williams, Meet the Press, Today, The Tonight Show, Late Night and MSNBC's Morning Joe.