From Yahoo Finance:
For
most of the U.S., the never-ending winter of 2013-14 now seems a
distant memory. Not for retailers though. The cold weather hurt sales as
consumers stayed home and brought down first quarter GDP.
But
now it seems weather forecasters are predicting another polar vortex
that may hit the Northeast as soon as September. Already we’ve had the
coolest summer in the last decade. Since the third quarter encompasses
July, August and September, retailers actually may be in for some good
news. Yahoo Finance Senior Columnist Mike Santolli says the cooler weather may push shoppers in to purchase winter gear earlier.
“If
we get an unusually cool spell heading into or during September, are we
gonna see as many retailers sort of credit the weather to the degree
they like to blame the weather in the past? You often hear this, people
buy according to need. You buy a coat if you feel cold one day, or a
sweater.”
Macy’s (M)
came out with earnings today and the stock is lower after
second-quarter sales failed to make up for weakness in the first
quarter. The company’s CEO Terry Lundgren blamed the economy saying many
customers are still cautious. Santolli says that raises a bit of doubt
as to whether the Q1 story is really about the weather because “we are
in this very low growth environment, where these little swing factors
are the difference between positive and negative potentially in any
given quarter as we saw in the first quarter. So to me it’s more of an
outgrowth of this very slow kind of growth trajectory that we’re in as
opposed to really anomalous weather or demographics.”...MORE
