What people say versus what people do!

BEFORE Black Friday Poll

Many Consumers Plan to Spend Less This Holiday Season

By ANN CARRNS | New York Times

With economic concerns weighing heavily, 42 percent of Americans --and 49 percent of parents -- say they plan to spend less this holiday season than last year, a recent survey found.


Princeton Survey Research Associates conducted the telephone survey of 1,005 adults in early November. The margin of sampling error is four percentage points.

The index fell to its second-lowest level of the year, as feelings of job security hit a new low. Just 13 percent of Americans feel more secure in their jobs now than they did one year ago, which helped drag down the overall index to 92.5 points, just above the 2011 low of 92.3 recorded in August. (A reading below 100 indicates decreasing levels of financial security compared with 12 months earlier.)

After Cyber Monday Facts

According to IBM Coremetrics, Cyber Monday sales were up 33% from last year, a huge increase even from previous years.

Cyber Monday was not the only day over the long Thanksgiving weekend which saw an increase in online sales. ComScore estimates online retailers sold approximately $1.3 billion dollars in merchandise on Thanksgiving and Black Friday combined, up 23% from last year.

Retail sales on Black Friday climbed 6.6% this year to an estimated $11.4 billion, according to ShopperTrak, which tracks foot traffic at malls and stores. Last year, sales climbed just 0.3% to $10.7 billion, which was a record one-day sales amount at the time, according to the company. 

Fasten your seatbelt

According to Tom Lee, JP Morgan US Equities Chief Strategist, the S&P 500 will reach 1350 by year-end.  Roughly speaking that's a rise of 1500 points in the DJIA!!!!  In one month!!!!!  :-)

JC Penney to become JC Gold???

By Bill Ackman

I have had the opportunity to spend time with Ron Johnson over the last nine months as he finished his career at Apple and began planning for his leadership role at JCP. Based on this experience and my assessment of his talents, creativity, and relevant expertise, I expect to look back on the decision by the company to hire Ron, and our role in identifying and recruiting him, as one of the most significant contributions that we have ever made to any company over the life of our firm.

One of the benefits of hiring a superstar CEO is the quality of the talent he can recruit. Ron recently hired Michael Francis to be President of JCP, a former colleague and a 22- year veteran of Target who was likely to be Target’s next CEO. Michael is considered by many in the retail community to be the best marketer in the business. For the last 10 years, Michael ran Target’s marketing and arranged deals with high-end designers who developed lower-cost lines for Target–the company’s recent Missoni deal is such an example–and drove the brand’s reputation as a high quality, high-fashion discount retailer.

Last week, Ron announced that Michael Kramer, CEO of the Kellwood Company, a private-equity-backed manufacturer and marketer of apparel and soft goods, would become COO of JCP. Before Kellwood, Michael was Executive VP and CFO of Abercrombie & Fitch. Prior to Abercrombie, Michael worked with Ron at Apple as the CFO of Apple Retail.

Daniel Walker recently was hired as Chief Talent Officer. Dan began his career at Federated Department Stores and later joined the GAP under Mickey Drexler where he worked to recruit talent during the GAP’s period of rapid growth and profitability. Afterwards, he was hired by Steve Jobs to serve in a similar capacity recruiting the talent that launched the iPod, iPhone, iPad, Apple and App stores. Dan is the best in his business and we expect he will make an enormous contribution to the transformation of JCP.

JCP will not be transformed overnight, although you should expect to see new marketing and merchandise presentation as well as organizational, structural, and cost control changes over the next year with the bulk of product changes beginning in 2013.

We expect our investment in JCP to be a long-term holding for the funds, and we have high expectations. We don’t buy 26% stakes and join boards of directors unless we believe an investment has enormous potential.