LUKE MACGREGOR
A humorous look at the companies that caught our eye, for better or worse, this week:
MACY'S (DOG)
For Macy's, there's been nothing happy about the new year. Hit by weak holiday sales, the retailer slashed its earnings forecast, announced 68 department-store closings and said it will cut 10,000 jobs. The only person who might be happy is Donald Trump, who in 2015 tweeted "Macy's stores suck" and called for a boycott "forever" after the chain pulled his clothing line over Mr. Trump's disparaging comments about Mexicans.
M (NYSE), $30.82 (U.S.) down $4.99 or 13.9% over week
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KOHL'S (DOG)
Well, at least Macy's doesn't have to suffer alone. Shares of fellow department-store operator Kohl's suffered their biggest daily decline ever after the company cut its fiscal 2016 earnings forecast, citing a "volatile" holiday season in which same-store sales fell 2.1 per cent in November and December combined. With the department-store business in long-term decline, you might say investors are getting raked over the Kohl's.
KSS (NYSE), $41.43 (U.S.) down $7.95 or 16.1% over week
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AMAZON.COM
Where have all the department-store customers gone? They're all shopping online, apparently. Even as many bricks-and-mortar stores struggled during the Christmas season, online retail giant Amazon said shipments for third-party vendors on its website rose 50 per cent during the holidays and leaped 100 per cent for all of 2016. With Amazon coming off its best holiday season ever, the stock's delivering some nice gains.
AMZN (Nasdaq), $795.99 (U.S.) up $46.12 or 6.2% over week
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TOREX GOLD RESOURCES (STAR)
Canada's junior hockey team may have missed out on gold, but shareholders of junior Canadian gold miner Torex Gold hit the motherlode. In a week that saw gold producers surge on higher bullion prices, Torex posted some of the sector's biggest gains after announcing encouraging results from its drilling program on the "El Limon Sill" at its Morelos property in Mexico. Torex shoots, it scores!
TXG (TSX), $25.83 up $5.04 or 24.2% over week
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RUBY TUESDAY (DOG)
What's on the menu at U.S. casual dining chain Ruby Tuesday? Well, this week's special was falling sales, widening losses and a plunging stock price. Hit by a 4.4-per-cent drop in same-store sales and an overall revenue decline of 17.7 per cent – reflecting the closing of 109 company-owned restaurants – the company's net loss in the second quarter more than doubled to $38-million (U.S.), or 63 cents a share. Forget dessert: Investors can't afford it.
RT (NYSE), $2.66 (U.S.) down 57¢ or 17.6% over week
John Heinzl