Toby Smith

Are Consumers Ready to Spend Again?

by Toby Smith   01/21/09

Retail Store Trends

Since February 2007, ChangeWave's consumer surveys have consistently pointed to two retail winners: Wal-Mart (WMT) (net difference score = +6) and Costco (COST) (+6).

But while both still lead among retail outlets in terms of spending growth during the next 90 days, Costco has experienced a significant drop in its growth rate in the past six months (from +11 in July '08 to +6 in January '09).

Once again, the greatest weakness going forward is among traditional retailers, led by Bed, Bath & Beyond (BBBY) (-14), Sears (SHLD) (-12), Macy's (M) (-12) and JC Penney (JCP) (-10).

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Toby Smith is the founder and editor of ChangeWave Investing and ChangeWave Inner Circle. Read his bio here.

The ChangeWave Alliance Research Network is a group of 20,000 highly qualified business, technology and medical professionals -- as well as early adopter consumers -- who work in leading companies of select industries. ChangeWave surveys its network members weekly on a range of business and consumer topics, and converts the information into a series of proprietary quantitative and qualitative reports.