Stock up next week: How to stock up on savings for Black Friday
“Inventory availability will be better at large, well-located retailers who have greater scale or flexibility to overcome challenges,” said UBS analyst Michael Lasser. this, or they will be considered preferred partners for their suppliers” me.
“Most of the inventory we need for the holiday season has been delivered to us or scheduled to arrive in stores and online during the holiday period,” TJX CEO Ernie Herrman told analysts on Thursday. last week.
These companies have faced higher costs to secure hot items. But unlike some competitors, they can afford to pay more when needed.
Lasser said the U.S. companies struggling the most are those that import most of their products from abroad. Walmart supplies two-thirds of its goods domestically, he noted, which insulates them from problems at the port.
Then there are the smaller retailers, which can’t just throw money at the problem. They may even fall behind the biggest players in the coming weeks.
The gap “has been widening for years,” says Lasser. “I hope that continues this holiday season.”
Doubts about Covid’s ‘Great Migration’
The “Great Migration” may not be as obvious as one might think.
The US Census Bureau recently released data showing migration activity has fallen to its lowest level in more than 70 years, my CNN Business colleague Alicia Wallace reports. The findings pour cold water on the anecdote that Americans are displaced more than ever during the pandemic.
From 2020 to 2021, nearly 27.1 million Americans, or 8.4% of the US population, reported living in a different place of residence than the previous year. This is down from 9.3% the previous year. Migration rates have been falling steadily since 2014.
Rethink the story: There may not have been a major overall trend of people moving across the country. Stephan D. Whitaker, a policy economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland who has closely studied migration patterns, said actual migration out of urban neighborhoods has increased over the period. the beginning of the pandemic.
“The flow of migrants out of large, high-cost metro areas has increased during the pandemic,” said Whitaker. “However, many other types of mobility, both long-distance and local, decline. The sum of all these moves shows that, in general, fewer people move in the first year of the pandemic. Translate.”
Whitaker has found that some of the outflows from high-cost metro areas continue through spring 2021, as people move to smaller neighboring cities and growing destinations. as fast as Las Vegas and Nashville.
At the same time, people began to return to the big cities – although not enough to replace those who had left.
Next
Second: US existing home sales; Urban dressers and earned income
Thursday: US markets are closed