Spring Comes Early for America’s Retailers

April 5, 2012

Thanks to warmer weather, it appears that the U.S. is shopping more. Before open today, several retailers announced their same-store sales results, most of which topped analysts' estimates. Now, the reason that analysts look at same-store sales data is that it is a steady measure of retail growth, because it only includes locations open at least a year. Let's take a look and see how some of America's favorite retailers did:

Ticker	Company	Estimated	Actual	Total Grade
ZUMZ	Zumiez Inc.	8.9%	14.1%	B
ROST	Ross Stores Inc.	4.6%	10.0%	A
TJX	TJX Cos.	4.8%	10.0%	A
LTD	Limited Brands Inc.	4.4%	8.0%	A
GPS	Gap Inc.	4.6%	8.0%	B
M	Macy's Inc.	4.8%	7.3%	A
TGT	Target Corp.	5.7%	7.3%	B
BKE	Buckle Inc.	8.8%	6.4%	B
SKS	Saks Inc.	6.3%	6.3%	C
COST	Costco Wholesale Corp.	6.5%	6.0%	A
KSS	Kohl's Corp.	2.1%	3.6%	C
WTSLA	Wet Seal Inc.	-6.0%	-7.8%	D
Total		5.3%	6.9%

As you can see, the majority of these retailers trumped analyst estimates. In addition, most of these stocks are doing quite well in my Portfolio Grader tool. Judging from these 12 retailers, it appears that American consumers are beginning to spend more. And, as I mentioned recently, this is great news because consumption makes up a sizeable portion of the U.S. economy.

Now, tomorrow, the Labor Department will release the official Unemployment Rate for March—which will be big news for the U.S. jobs market. So, even though the market will be closed for Good Friday, I'll have a brief update on that in tomorrow's blog post.