By Jessica Wohl

CHICAGO (Reuters) – When the U.S. holiday shopping season kicks off on the day after Thanksgiving, retailers can expect to see millions of less frightened but even more bargain hungry customers cross their thresholds.

Industry experts expect a strong turnout on Black Friday, which falls on November 27 this year, as deep discounts lure shoppers after more than a year of subdued spending. But they caution it will not mean a bumper holiday season in the weeks leading up to Christmas since consumers still remain cautious.

“Given what we know about consumer shopping patterns, even this month, I would suspect it will turn out to be a very strong performance,” said Michael Niemira, chief economist of the International Council of Shopping Centers.

Special promotion days have been big drivers of sales, he said, pointing to the lift retailers saw on the November 11 Veteran’s Day holiday.

Retailers and websites dedicated to Black Friday deals have leaked sales plans earlier than usual, in the hopes of sparking demand for flat panel televisions, toys and other goods after the worst holiday season in decades in 2008.

While the economy remains weak and unemployment has risen, U.S. shoppers have had more than a year to adjust their spending and digest the bad news. In 2008, holiday shopping started just weeks after the global financial crisis erupted.

“Certainly last year was a year of tremendous uncertainty going into Black Friday because we were right in the middle of the storm,” said Chris Donnelly, a partner in Accenture’s retail practice. “There is much less panic, I would say, or much less uncertainty, as we go into the season.”

Even so, more than 172 million shoppers visited stores and websites from Thanksgiving Day through Sunday last year, up from 147 million in 2007, according to the National Retail Federation. The average amount of money spent by shoppers over that weekend rose 7.2 percent to $372.57 per person.

Those numbers, however, did not prevent a sales slide of 2.8 percent for the entire shopping season last year, the first decline since the NRF began tracking such data in 1995.

While the NRF has not issued a Black Friday forecast, it expects 2009 holiday season sales to rise 1 percent. The ICSC forecast a 1 percent to 2 percent rise.

“Retail sales have been, while not stellar, somewhat stabilizing over the past few months and there is every reason to believe that as we go into the holiday season that we are going to see some stability as well,” Donnelly said.

BARGAIN FRIDAY

The term Black Friday is said to have originated in Philadelphia during the 1960s to describe the difficulty of police and drivers to deal with exceptionally heavy traffic on that day as shoppers flooded the city’s commercial center.

The phrase was later co-opted by retailers to refer to the holiday shopping period as a time of year when their business moves into the black, or turns a profit.

Niemira, for one, refers to Black Friday as “Bargain Friday” since it is known for deals.  Continued…

By Jessica Wohl

CHICAGO (Reuters) – When the U.S. holiday shopping season kicks off on the day after Thanksgiving, retailers can expect to see millions of less frightened but even more bargain hungry customers cross their thresholds.

Industry experts expect a strong turnout on Black Friday, which falls on November 27 this year, as deep discounts lure shoppers after more than a year of subdued spending. But they caution it will not mean a bumper holiday season in the weeks leading up to Christmas since consumers still remain cautious.

“Given what we know about consumer shopping patterns, even this month, I would suspect it will turn out to be a very strong performance,” said Michael Niemira, chief economist of the International Council of Shopping Centers.

Special promotion days have been big drivers of sales, he said, pointing to the lift retailers saw on the November 11 Veteran’s Day holiday.

Retailers and websites dedicated to Black Friday deals have leaked sales plans earlier than usual, in the hopes of sparking demand for flat panel televisions, toys and other goods after the worst holiday season in decades in 2008.

While the economy remains weak and unemployment has risen, U.S. shoppers have had more than a year to adjust their spending and digest the bad news. In 2008, holiday shopping started just weeks after the global financial crisis erupted.

“Certainly last year was a year of tremendous uncertainty going into Black Friday because we were right in the middle of the storm,” said Chris Donnelly, a partner in Accenture’s retail practice. “There is much less panic, I would say, or much less uncertainty, as we go into the season.”

Even so, more than 172 million shoppers visited stores and websites from Thanksgiving Day through Sunday last year, up from 147 million in 2007, according to the National Retail Federation. The average amount of money spent by shoppers over that weekend rose 7.2 percent to $372.57 per person.

Those numbers, however, did not prevent a sales slide of 2.8 percent for the entire shopping season last year, the first decline since the NRF began tracking such data in 1995.

While the NRF has not issued a Black Friday forecast, it expects 2009 holiday season sales to rise 1 percent. The ICSC forecast a 1 percent to 2 percent rise.

“Retail sales have been, while not stellar, somewhat stabilizing over the past few months and there is every reason to believe that as we go into the holiday season that we are going to see some stability as well,” Donnelly said.

BARGAIN FRIDAY

The term Black Friday is said to have originated in Philadelphia during the 1960s to describe the difficulty of police and drivers to deal with exceptionally heavy traffic on that day as shoppers flooded the city’s commercial center.

The phrase was later co-opted by retailers to refer to the holiday shopping period as a time of year when their business moves into the black, or turns a profit.

Niemira, for one, refers to Black Friday as “Bargain Friday” since it is known for deals.  Continued…

By Martinne Geller

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Women’s clothing retailer AnnTaylor Stores Corp (ANN.N) reported lower-than-expected quarterly revenue on Friday and gave a cautious forecast for the current holiday quarter, sending shares down 2.2 percent in premarket trade.

The operator of the Ann Taylor and Ann Taylor LOFT chains said its fourth-quarter sales would be slightly below those of the third quarter, and that its gross margins would be lower as well, due to heightened promotions it expects to use to drive sales throughout the holiday shopping period.

In the third quarter, ended on October 31, AnnTaylor posted a net profit of $2.1 million, or 3 cents per share, reversing a net loss of $13.4 million, or 24 cents per share, a year earlier.

Excluding restructuring and asset impairment charges, the company said it earned 20 cents per share in the latest quarter.

On that basis analysts on average were expecting earnings of 7 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Net sales fell 12 percent to $462.4 million, missing analysts’ estimate of $473.9 million.

Like Chico’s FAS Inc (CHS.N), Talbots Inc (TLB.N) and other chains that target mature women, AnnTaylor has suffered in the recession as some customers reduced spending on themselves before cutting back on purchases for their families.

Yet earlier this week, Chico’s posted much better-than-expected results, saying a revamping of its merchandise helped it snag market share from rivals.

AnnTaylor said same-store sales, or sales at stores open at least a year, fell 13.7 percent in the third quarter — an improvement from declines of 22.5 percent in the second quarter and 30.7 percent in the first.

In its battle against falling sales, AnnTaylor has cut jobs and reduced the inventory it keeps on hand.

Beginning in the summer, the company started selling evergreen wardrobe items, such as “the perfect pencil skirt, perfect pants, and perfect jacket,” throughout the whole season and brought in more fashionable pieces monthly to complement them.

AnnTaylor said it expects fourth-quarter selling, general and administrative expenses of $245 million.

AnnTaylor shares fell to $13.50 in premarket trade on Friday, from their close on Friday at $13.81 on the New York Stock Exchange.

(Reporting by Martinne Geller, editing by Gerald E. McCormick)

(Reuters) – Supermarket mogul Ron Burkle and his investment arm, Yucaipa, have purchased a large amount of U.S. luxury retail chain Barneys New York’s debt, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter.

Citigroup Inc (C.N) sold a big part of Barneys’ secured term loan to Burkle at about 60 cents on the dollar, the people told the paper.

Yucaipa also bought a big part of Barneys’ subordinated debt, the paper cited one person familiar with the matter as saying.

Spokesmen for Yucaipa, Citigroup and Barneys could not be immediately reached for comment by Reuters.

Barneys, which is owned by Dubai’s Istithmar World Capital, hired restructuring advisory firm Perella Weinberg earlier this year to help it mull options that would shore up its financial position.

The luxury chain, with stores in cities like New York and Chicago, has struggled in the recession as even wealthy consumers have cut back on spending.

Istithmar, a unit of Dubai World DBWLD.UL, bought Barneys for $942 million from Jones Apparel Group (JNY.N) in 2007. It provided some additional funding to the chain in April, allowing it to pay for its shipments for the rest of the year.

(Reporting by Ajay Kamalakaran in Bangalore; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Fidelity Investments has launched a service to help retail brokers determine how profitable it would be for them to leave their brokerage house and hang out their own shingle.

The online calculator is a way for Fidelity to boost its revenue from an increasingly important business — providing support services to independent brokers.

With the top brokerages involved in mergers — like Morgan Stanley’s (MS.N) new Smith Barney joint venture with Citigroup Inc (C.N), or Merrill Lynch’s purchase by Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) — industry observers have predicted a wave of brokers would leave the big players to open their own boutique firms.

Fidelity is one of the largest players in providing services to these brokers. The 3,500 independent advisors it supports oversee $370 billion in client assets.

Fidelity’s new service, called Transition Solutions, calculates the income and expenses for a broker running his or her own firm over a 10-year period, based on the most common business models for independent investment advisors.

The Boston-based investment management firm has recruited 170 brokers to its independent advisor services through the first nine months of this year, it said, including Wayne, Pennsylvania-based Stillwater Capital Advisors, with $325 million in assets under management.

(Reporting by Joe Rauch; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Williams-Sonoma Inc (WSM.N) (WSM.N) posted a higher-than-expected quarterly profit and raised its full-year outlook on Thursday as the home-goods retailer’s cost-cutting and merchandising efforts bore fruit.

The operator of the Williams-Sonoma cookware and Pottery Barn furnishings chains, whose shares rose nearly 4 percent in premarket trading, said net profit was $7.3 million, or 7 cents a share, in the third quarter ended November 1. That compares with a year-earlier net loss of $11.0 million, or 10 cents a share.

Excluding one-time items, the company earned 16 cents a share, beating the analysts’ average forecast of 5 cents, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Net revenue fell 3 percent to $729 million, but exceeded the analysts’ average estimate of $686.1 million. Sales at stores open at least a year rose 1.7 percent.

Williams-Sonoma, like rivals Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY.O) and Pier 1 Imports (PIR.N), has suffered as consumers stuck to buying essentials in the tough economy.

To combat weak demand, Williams-Sonoma has shut stores, cut its advertising budget and managed inventory tightly. In August, the company said it saw leaner inventories boosting margins in the back half of the year.

Williams-Sonoma has also slashed prices on some items to woo shoppers, despite worries that the move might tarnish its image as a high-end retailer.

For the full year, the company said it expected earnings of 25 cents to 34 cents a share. It had earlier forecast a profit of 19 cents to 31 cents before one-time items.

Williams-Sonoma expects full-year net revenue of $2.98 billion to $3.04 billion, up from its prior outlook of $2.84 billion to $2.94 billion.

The company’s shares were up 3.6 percent at $21.79 in trading before the market opened.

(Reporting by Dhanya Skariachan; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

By Rodrigo Campos

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stocks fell on Tuesday after discount retailer Target gave a cautious holiday season outlook, but positive brokerage comments on tech bellwether Microsoft helped limit losses.

Target (TGT.N), the No. 2 discount retailer behind Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N), said it was cautious about its fourth-quarter performance. Dow component Home Depot Inc (HD.N), the top U.S. home improvement chain, said it faced a “great deal of pressure” in the housing and home improvement markets.

Weak outlooks for the key holiday season are negative signs for the recovery since consumer spending accounts for about two-thirds of U.S. economic activity. Both retail bellwethers gave cautious outlooks even as they posted quarterly profits that topped estimates.

“Target’s very underwhelming guidance commentary is having a big negative effect, not only on Target but on overall retail sentiment,” said Michael James, senior trader at Wedbush Morgan in Los Angeles.

“It feels like the market should be down a lot more, but you’re seeing some residual strength in technology and that is helping offset the weakness,” James said.

The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI slipped 12.02 points, or 0.12 percent, to 10,394.94. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index .SPX dropped 3.51 points, or 0.32 percent, to 1,105.79. The Nasdaq Composite Index .IXIC fell 4.40 points, or 0.20 percent, to 2,193.45.

Tuesday’s fall comes after major indexes set 13-month highs in the previous session on Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s comment that interest rates will stay low for a long period. The Dow is up 59 percent since its March lows.

Target’s shares fell 4.8 percent to $47.87, while Home Depot dropped 4.5 percent to $26.42. The S&P retail index .RLX declined 1.9 percent.

But Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) rose 1.7 percent to $29.91 after Morgan Stanley raised its price target on the shares and said it was more positive on demand for Windows 7 and on the technology company’s holiday season. Microsoft was the top percentage gainer on the Dow industrials and gave the biggest lift to the Nasdaq 100 .NDX.

Retailer Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O), down 0.9 percent to $130.47, was one of the biggest drags on the Nasdaq 100.

Oil prices rose despite a stronger U.S. dollar, while other commodities were trading mostly flat .CRB, giving support to shares in the basic materials sector.

In economic news, U.S. industrial output rose less than expected in October. Another report before the market opened showed wholesale inflation was tame, but stock futures showed little reaction.

(Editing by Kenneth Barry)

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Billionaire Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc (BRKa.N)(BRKb.N) revealed on Monday new investments in Nestle AG (NESN.VX)(NSRGY.PK) and Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N), respectively the world’s largest food maker and oil company, and that it has nearly doubled its investment in Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N), the world’s largest retailer.

In a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing reporting U.S.-listed equity holdings as of September 30, Berkshire said it held 3.4 million American depositary receipts of Nestle valued at $144.7 million and about 1.28 million Exxon Mobil shares valued at $87.6 million.

It also reported boosting its stake in Wal-Mart by 90 percent from three months earlier, to 37.8 million shares valued at about $1.86 billion from 19.9 million shares as of June 30.

Berkshire, which is based in Omaha, Nebraska, also reported a new $96.3 million investment in waste collection company Republic Services Inc (RSG.N), and a $1.35 million investment in the insurer Travelers Cos (TRV.N).

Berkshire did not immediately return a request for comment. Buffett, the world’s second-richest person, does not publicly discuss what he is buying and selling, or ordinarily explain purchases and sales revealed in quarterly SEC filings.

Monday’s SEC filing includes investments made by various Berkshire subsidiaries, so it may not be the case that Buffett himself is making particular investment decisions.

A separate filing also revealed that Berkshire had begun accumulating its stake in Exxon in the second quarter. The SEC occasionally gives Buffett permission to delay disclosing investment activity so investors cannot copy him while he is still buying and selling.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel; editing by Andre Grenon)

By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. retail sales grew more than expected last month as vehicle sales bounced back from a deep slump, but non-auto sales edged up just slightly, suggesting consumers remain cautious.

Other data on Monday showed New York state manufacturing activity slowed this month, further highlighting the uneven nature of the economic recovery.

The Commerce Department said total retail sales increased 1.4 percent last month after dropping 2.3 percent in September. Excluding autos, sales were up just 0.2 percent after a 0.4 percent rise the prior month.

Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast headline retail sales rising 1.0 percent last month from a previously reported decline of 1.5 percent.

“This is consistent with other data points that show the economy is picking up, though we still have a way to go,” said Joseph Battipaglia, market strategist at Stifel Nicolaus in Yardley, Pennsylvania.

A report from the New York Federal Reserve Bank showed a gauge of New State manufacturing activity slowed to 23.51 in November from 34.57 in October, which was a five-year high.

U.S. stock index futures pared gains on the data, while Treasury debt prices extended gains.

Retail sales in October were boosted by a jump in new vehicle and parts sales, which surged 7.4 percent.

Auto sales had slumped 14.3 percent the previous month following the expiration of the government’s popular “cash-for-clunkers” incentive program in August that had buoyed demand for motor vehicles. Previously, the government had reported auto sales falling 10.4 percent in September.

With government stimulus behind the bulk of the economy’s 3.5 percent annualized growth pace in the third quarter, there are fears that rising unemployment will continue to weigh on consumer spending and hold back the recovery.

The economy’s growth in the July-September period followed four straight quarters of decline and probably ended the most painful U.S. recession since the 1930s.

Even without the boost from auto sales, there were signs that consumer spending, which normally accounts for about 70 percent of U.S. consumer spending, continued to improve in October, albeit slowly.

Core retail sales excluding autos, gasoline and building materials rose 0.5 percent, advancing for a fourth straight month.

But sales of building materials dropped 2.4 percent last month after falling 0.6 percent in September.

Weak demand for building materials saw Lowe’s Cos Inc, the second-largest U.S. home improvement chain, posting a 30 percent decline in quarterly profit in the July-September period as consumers put off big renovations and as the U.S. housing market recovered only slowly.  Continued…