Wall Street Greek: Retail Sales Data Dictates Trade

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Retail Sales Dictate

Today's retail sales data is adding lift to shares. The gain for October is impressive; especially considering its coming on the heels of a nasty skew for strong September sales, due to a weird Labor Day holiday that fell deep into the month. Still, we suspect it will not be long before traders focus on a tight holiday shopping season and heavy retail insider selling moving into the important period.

Retail Sales

October Retail Sales were reported today up 1.4% over September sales. As you will recall, those sales benefited from a late Labor Day holiday and delayed "back to school" shopping. When compared to the prior year, October sales weakness was still in evidence, as sales fell 1.7% against the prior year. Last fall marked about when all hell started to break loose.

October's monthly rise exceeded economists consensus forecasts for a 0.9% rise. Ex-autos, sales improved only 0.2%, versus expectations for 0.4%. We should also note relatively positive results from the August through October period. Those sales rose 1.5% against prior year results, but autos helped drive that on "cash for clunkers"...

New York Manufacturing

The Empire State Manufacturing Index came in down to 23.51 for its November reading, dropped from October's 34.6 and the consensus view for 29.0. This is consistent with double-dip recession concerns we have here.

Business Inventories

Business Inventories for September are due at 10:00 AM. The consensus, as measured by Bloomberg, sees a monthly decrease of 0.8%. Augusts' tally noted a 1.5% drop in inventory on the business level. Clunkers again fogs up comparisons, so keep your senses...

Bernanke Takes Stage

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will address the Economic Club of New York today at noontime. He will be talking to the ever-intensifying challenges to his group's policy making. Those pesky lawmakers keep seeking to restrict the Fed's uber-power.

Overseas News Drivers

Japan today reported its strongest GDP growth since 2007. Third quarter gross domestic product increased 4.8%, on the strength of renewed export demand and government stimulus.

The European Central Bank (ECB), the Bank for International Settlements, and the World Bank are meeting today to review their own portfolio and risk management methods.

Corporate Earnings Drivers

Lowe's (NYSE: LOW) reported results that were in line with analysts expectations, earning $0.24 per share ex-items. The company noted 30% lower revenues than last year though, while attempting to appease market concerns with its view for a reviving housing market and flat Q4 revenue forecast. We have a feeling the market is not going to buy it. LOW shares have backed off of summer highs, but have seen some renewed strength of late. The company's revenue forecast is better than analysts' view, but we just have trouble seeing them making the mark despite the easy comp. See our report on housing in a pending article...

Talk about kitchen sink write-offs! General Motors (NYSE: GM) reported only a $1.2 billion loss for its Q3, or that portion of the quarter that came post bankruptcy. Unfortunately, it cannot hide the $79.4 billion it lost in the first few days of the quarter while still under bankruptcy protection. Actually though, many of those cost burdens have been permanently removed and operating burden lightened. Get this though... GM congratulated itself on its revenue drivers, its Camaro muscle car, its Silverado, its full-size Impala and other same olds... Also, it was sure to mention today's keyword, "global" sales efforts. Good luck GM, but we're not so sure you are that much different since renovation, though smaller; at least not beyond the cuts to the knees of the autoworkers that had no leg to stand on during the bankruptcy. That's for my friends in Detroit...

Monday's earnings schedule includes news from ADA-ES (Nasdaq: ADES), American Dairy (NYSE: ADY), American Oriental Bioengineering (NYSE: AOB), Arcadia Resources (AMEX: KAD), Assured Guaranty (NYSE: AGO), Authentidate Holding (Nasdaq: ADAT), Cellcom Israel (NYSE: CEL), China Architectural Engineering (Nasdaq: CAEI), Document Security Systems (AMEX: DMC), DRI Corporation (Nasdaq: TBUS), Emrise (NYSE: ERI), Encorium Group (Nasdaq: ENCO), Energy Focus (Nasdaq: EFOI), Euroseas Limited (Nasdaq: ESEA), Flamel Technologies (Nasdaq: FLML), Flotek Industries (NYSE: FTK), Fortune Industries (AMEX: FFI), Franklin Covey (NYSE: FC), FreeSeas (Nasdaq: FREE), Gilat Satellite (Nasdaq: GILT), Hastings Entertainment (Nasdaq: HAST), International Royalty (AMEX: ROY), KHD Humboldt Wedag Int'l (NYSE: KHD), Longtop Financial Technologies (NYSE: LFT), Lowe's Cos. (NYSE: LOW), Misonix (Nasdaq: MSON), Multiband Corp. (Nasdaq: MBND), Napco Security (Nasdaq: NSSC), Northern Dynasty Minerals (AMEX: NAK), Pacific Sunwear of California (Nasdaq: PSUN), Palatin Technologies (AMEX: PTN), Perfect World (Nasdaq: PWRD), Pet DRx Corp. (Nasdaq: VETS), Pressure Biosciences (Nasdaq: PBIO), ReneSola (NYSE: SOL), Response Genetics (Nasdaq: RGDX), Simcere Pharmaceutical Group (NYSE: SCR), SINA Corp. (Nasdaq: SINA), SinoHub (Nasdaq: SIHI), Sinovac Biotech (AMEX: SVA), Sparton (NYSE: SPA), Spreadtrum Communications (Nasdaq: SPRD), Starwood Property Trust (Nasdaq: STWD), Telkonet (NYSE: TKO), The Allied Defense Group (AMEX: ADG), TLC Vision (Nasdaq: TLCV), US Dataworks (AMEX: UDW), Wegener (Nasdaq: WGNR), WidePoint (AMEX: WYY) and Zoom Technologies (Nasdaq: ZOOM).