Yarns by the Yard   

It might be cool for activist investor Bill Ackman to hand out business cards that simply said: “William Ackman – Activist Investor.”

Seems the guy takes his role to heart.

One of the very few hedge funders who on occasion at least projects the appearance of humility – in February he famously issued an “I’m sorry” letter to participants in a Target-heavy fund that drastically underperformed – Ackman and his Pershing Square Capital are not shy about “what Target should do.”

When something gets as big as Wal-Mart, it would be strange if there were no conflicting interpretations of its actions.

I recently I posted my reaction to the “Stimulus Package” that Walmart indicated its hourly employees would be receiving in various forms – bonuses, 401(k) increases, merchandise discounts – to a total of as much as $2 billion.

My reaction was positive.

The idea didn’t seem entirely unreasonable. After all, Wal-Mart is one of the retailers whose fortunes have been running counter to the market at large. On revenues o...Read More

Dutch general merchandiser HEMA (which stands for Hollandse Eenheidsprijzen Maatschappij Amsterdam – thank you, Wikipedia!) sells a wide range of stuff at cheap prices and sports a perky ambiance.

Goods seem to be in the Wal-Mart/Kmart area of th...Read More

Sometimes the world seems simple.

Last week, Walmart said it would cut a check for $2 billion payable to its hourly wage employees. How’s that for a stimulus package?

As reported by Andria Cheng at MarketWatch, the Walmart incentive plan will comprise more than $900 million in bonus payments –...Read More

And I thought felt was just boiled, compressed wool.

Turns out there is far more food for thought – and product inspiration – in the “Fashioning Felt” exhibit at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum on New York’s Museum Mile.

The Cooper-Hewitt, a branch of the Smithsonian, has with this show assembled the works o...Read More

The news report said “Tallest U.S. building to get new name.” I immediately wondered if Sears Holdings Corp. chairman Edward Lampert was going to do that old-fashioned billionaire thing and name the company’s old headquarters after himself.

Alas, I am so out of date! First of all, Sears moved out of the downtown tower to suburban Hoffman Estates back in the 1990s.

Second of all, billionaires who name buildings after themselves sometimes ha...Read More

Who’s got a new model for doing more business in home textiles? It might be smart to take a look at what’s going on in furniture retailing, where over the past 18 months one merchandiser after another has folded, along with many a vendor.

Someone is taking market share.

It seems one-time retailer Furniture.com changed itself a few years ago into a provider of e-commerce and fulfillment for other retailers.

Now, ...Read More

Details are sketchy, but the scale is staggering: the government of China is subsidizing the establishment of hundreds of thousands of new retail stores. As many as 260,000 convenience stores and supermarkets were opened under the subsidy program in rural Chinese townships and counties between 2005 and last year – and now the pace will quicken!

...Read More

Well, you can’t fault ’em for not trying!

Those glib handicappers over at Motley Fool have posted the winner of their annual “Ten Worst Stocks” predictions for 2009.

Sears Holdings didn’t quite make the top spot – but the Motley Fool crew did post Edward Lampert and his merry merchants as one of the 10 candidate companies.

As its promoter for top – or bottom – billing pointed out, ...Read More

As the song says, it’s that whole thing about “Let A Smile Be Your Umbrella.”

Call them eclectic, call them retro, but take a stroll down Broadway soon and, at 19^th Street, check out Fishs Eddy.

Perhaps you’ve known them for years as a place stocked like somebody’s weird aunt's attic, or a restaurant warehouse hit by a tornado of quirkiness.

Want a hot tip?

You’d be well advised to ask elsewhere – but since we’ve come this far: Short the Nasdaq Bailout Index.

Why do I say this? Because I’m pretending today is Jan. 5, one month ago. That’s the day Nasdaq launched its composite index of 14 of the major corporations that had received chunks of the fall 2008 federal bailout bucks. The Citigroups, the GMs, the Goldman Sachs of the world.

Retailers from coast to coast are hammering their landlords for relief. “Lower our rents,” they say, “or we may have to shutter many of those stores. And where are you going to get another good renter like us?”

Where, indeed. How likely is it that another renter is going to show up out of the blue?

A leading shopping center figure, David Simon, chairman and ceo of Simon Property Group, summed up the store real estate picture at the recent Financ...Read More