Ken Perkins Last Quotations

Clearly falling gas prices coupled with the late arrival of cooler weather in the last two weeks of October gave a boost to consumer spending.

The numbers look pretty good so far. We are seeing more surprises to the upside and this is a nice reversal of the trend that we had expected last month. Even among those retailers who missed our forecast, not many of them blamed gas prices for it.

We've already seen some big disappointments in both Limited and Ann Taylor. Up front, retailers are also facing their most difficult hurdle of the year in the form of a 6.1 percent gain racked up in September last year.

After a stellar September for retailers, it was a given to expect some weakness last month. But this is pretty amazing. I don't think I've seen this much red on the board.

The American consumer has been particularly resilient over the last year plus, ... They're finding ways to spend.

The first two quarters of last year were OK but not stellar. If we still have double digit increases in earnings during the third quarter, that would be good news.

Economic conditions have improved significantly from March last year when commerce was impeded for much of the month by the run up to the Iraq war. People do appear to be shopping more.

The last time Wal-Mart had a monthly same-store sales gain that low was back in December of 2000, with a 0.3 percent rise. Prior to that was in April of 1996, with a 0.2 percent gain. That was probably another year when Easter got pushed into April.

We're getting some very good results today despite the very difficult 6.7 percent February same-store sales comparisons from last year.

Fourth-quarter retail earnings are expected to grow 13.5 percent. That's below last year's growth and could come down further if we see plenty of promotions.

It's not the greatest macro environment to be going into. The psyche of the consumer has taken a beating the last couple of months,