Macy's Holiday Troubles Are Giving Retail Investors 2019 Jitters
- Early results damp hopes for best holiday since the recession
- Deeper divide emerging between U.S. retail winners and losers
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When the dust settles on the 2018 holiday-shopping season, it might still look like the spending boom many expected. But in the meantime, early results from big public companies are bringing long-held worries about the industry back to the surface.
Investors entered the holidays with both optimism and trepidation, knowing that this might be the last hurrah of the economic recovery -- a kind of peak Christmas. Thursday’s jarring results cast doubt on that premise, as a strong economy and high consumer confidence failed to translate into a standout year-end for every store. For those lucky chains that did sidestep lackluster sales, there’s a growing concern that all the promotions and free shipping ate into profits.