Bill Dreher Strong Quotations

Wal-Mart continues to show strong momentum and operating performance. Its food and apparel sales did well, which fits in with our thesis that Wal-Mart is really taking on the supermarkets. By adding new apparel name brands like Levi's, I think it's in a position to see tremendous success in apparel too.

Wal-Mart continues to show strong momentum and operating performance, ... Its food and apparel sales did well, which fits in with our thesis that Wal-Mart is really taking on the supermarkets. By adding new apparel name brands like Levi's, I think it's in a position to see tremendous success in apparel too.

People are being much more rational with their expenditures. That's why we're seeing these discount price retailers generating strong customer traffic and solid sales increases. And we expect strong earnings increases from them.

The companies that are seeing strong gross margin improvements are getting it not from improving their merchandising mix, but from improved buying. Retailers like Wal-Mart and Target are lowering their cost of acquiring products. Sears on the other hand, continues to struggle with the turnaround of its department stores and problems with its credit card unit.

Wal-Mart has made it very clear that the prospects for this holiday are much stronger than the conventional wisdom would have had it.

The news we got today was incrementally negative, even for the best operators out there. And clearly this does not bode well for a strong holiday season.

Clearly the last 10 days before Christmas were very strong and allowed retailers to achieve their sales plans for the month despite the lack of aggressive promotions we saw in 2002.

I think there continues to be a very strong psychological impact with people worried about their own safety and the safety of their families. I don't know what's going on with this flight, but whatever it turns out to be, it adds a significant psychological impact on consumer spending and on how the stocks behave.