Search results for Best Buy
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Posted
Sep 15 2009, 01:30 PM
by
Minyanville
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This article is written by Minyanville's Kristen Graham
As one of the few freestanding electronic retailers left standing, I’ve found myself warming up to Best Buy (BBY) lately. See, Best Buy is a retail winner. This morning, the company released second-quarter results have further piqued my interest in the company.
The retailer missed earnings estimates as profits fell 22%. But total revenue rose 12%, boosted by the 170 new European stores it opened over the last year. And domestic sales increased 2% -- a solid figure in my mind as positive sales growth is pretty rare in the retail space these days. See Also: Best Buy boosts full-year forecast More importantly though, inventory fell 6.1%, positioning the company to enter the holiday season with a lean balance sheet. And market share soared 2% as its formerly crippled rival Circuit City is no longer in operation and current competitors just don’t offer as impressive of a selection of merchandise.
Despite increased traffic flow, the average ticket fell. This comes as no surprise as consumers simply don’t have the funds to make larger purchases right now. The key point here, though, is that consumers are still going to Best Buy for their electronic needs. Sure -- they may not be making purchases as large as they once would have, but they're still going or switching to the big-box retailer when they need electronic goods.
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Posted
Sep 23 2009, 04:06 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Jeff Bezos, the founder and chief executive of Amazon (AMZN), is known for being eccentric, but his new handset offer may be taking that act a bit too far. Cell phones using the AT&T (T) wireless network were selling on Amazon yesterday for one penny each. If the program is a success it is likely to come back.
The only product not available at the remarkable price is the Apple (AAPL) iPhone.
The purchase of the phone must be made with a two-year AT&T wireless subscription. The phones also come with free two-day shipping.
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Posted
Oct 20 2009, 03:53 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Price cuts work. In September, Sony’s (SNE) PlayStation 3 outsold the Microsoft (MSFT) Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii for the first time in recent memory.
Industry research firm NPD said that the video game industry, which includes both consoles and games, had sales of $1.28 billion in September, up 1% from a year ago.
Sony shipped 491,800 PS3 units in September, moving ahead of Nintendo’s Wii which shipped 462,800 units, and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 which dropped to third place with 352,600 units shipped.
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Posted
Jun 19 2008, 09:19 AM
by
Anthony Mirhaydari
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Back in April, brainy Wall Street analysts expected the vast majority of Americans to save or pay down debt with their economic stimulus checks. Indeed, poll after poll indicated a growing population of newly converted pinchpennies. But old habits die hard: As soon as those U.S. Treasury checks hit mailboxes in the first week of May, our nation of manic consumers forgot all about Ricardian equivalence, rising inflationary pressures, and eroding personal balance sheets. Instead, they did what they do best, and pushed retails sales well past expectations for the month.
Big-time electronics retailer Best Buy -- as indicated by its recently released quarterly results -- was a popular offloading point for those rebate checks as HDTVs, Blu-rays, and iPods took the place of mortgage payments, retirement accounts, and debt reduction. Revenues jumped 13% to $9 billion, helped by store expansions in North America and China, with comp-store sales up an impressive 3.7%. Margins were helped by strength in the company's Geek Squad services team and in sales of extended warranty plans
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Posted
Nov 10 2008, 09:46 AM
by
Anthony Mirhaydari
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Back in June, I wrote that Circuit City's shares were beginning to look like options on its survival. Well, those options expired out of the money: The second-largest U.S. electronics retailer has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after losing more than $5 billion in market value over the last two years.
Even after announcing the closure of 20% of its 721 U.S. locations, the company couldn't convince vendors it could build inventory and pay its bills heading into the critical holiday season. Overall, the retailer owed its suppliers some $650 million, of which Hewlett-Packard and Samsung Electronics expect $119 million and $116 million, respectively.
Now, with the company pulling down $1.1 billion in bankruptcy financing to help stock shelves and extend credit to customers, it has retained FTI Consulting to help it plan a restructuring. Is there any hope?
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Posted
Sep 10 2008, 12:11 AM
by
Anthony Mirhaydari
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
In the face of mounting job losses and falling real incomes, Americans are living on borrowed time. So spending on consumer goods is bound to drop, right?
Investors have prepared for this by avoiding, or shorting, discretionary consumer stocks. Top of the list for many were the purveyors and creators of electronic devices -- HDTVs, computers, car stereos, cell phones, and the like.
In fact, spending on these items actually increased between June and July as consumers cut back elsewhere, according
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Posted
Oct 01 2008, 06:26 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
While the market was busy looking at all of those "For Sale" signs around most neighborhoods, it forgot that people also put three or four expensive cars in their driveways and bought $5,000 home entertainment centers.
Someone has to pay for all of that hardware, but it is not going to be the people who bought it. They are broke and jobless. The repo men are being sent from car loan companies and Best Buy to get the stuff back. Unfortunately, used cars and consumer electronics have not held their value.
MarketWatch reports that "According to Innovest StrategicValue Advisors, banks will charge off $18.6 billion in delinquent credit-card accounts in the first quarter of 2009 and $96 billion in all of 2009, more than double the research firm's forecast for all of this year." That may be a drop in the bucket compared with what banks and operations like GMAC will be hit with from bad car loans.
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Posted
Nov 03 2008, 09:49 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 How dreary will holiday retail sales get this year? Circuit City sees the writing on the wall, and is getting out before the first Christmas carol hits the muzak. The company is closing 155 stores -- a fifth of its total -- and will completely exit cities like Phoenix, Atlanta and Kansas City.
The No. 2 consumer electronics chain will lay off about 17% of its work force. It's hired a bankruptcy advisor and a liquidator, according to the Wall Street Journal, and is desperately trying to shore up some cash.
Circuit City is being hit with one crisis after another, starting with its vendors, who got worried after the company's gloomy
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Posted
Dec 16 2008, 11:28 AM
by
Anthony Mirhaydari
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
With two weeks left in 2008, the year-that-was in the retail sector isn't pretty: closings stand at 6,150 stores, or 102 million square feet of retail space, according to analysts at Credit Suisse. That's the largest number of annual closures since they started tracking this data in 1995.
Famous names that have shuttered locations include Sears, Office Depot, Circuit City, Steve & Barry's, Mervyn's, and Linens 'n Things.
KB Toys, the venerable 86-year-old retailer, just filed for bankruptcy this month. Not since 2001 has a retailer called it quits in December, a sign of desperation that foreshadows another string of bankruptcies and closures
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Posted
Jul 01 2008, 11:28 AM
by
Minyanville
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
1. Stocks are firmly in a downtrend.
The S&P 500 is down roughly 20% from the market peak on October 11, 2007.
2. Corporate spreads are rapidly widening.
Investment grade bonds yielded as little as 0.30% more than U.S. Treasuries did back in 2003 - but are now as much as 2.30% above U.S. Treasury rates.
3. Everyone I know is saying “All is well, buy America.”
The crowd is usually wrong at extremes.
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