<p>I talked about going into TJ Maxx from Nike a week or two ago and I’m thinking about that.</p>
<p>I believe that it is off to a slow start. </p>
<p>We had three major events in town and the only delay I hit was 30 seconds longer at a traffic signal.</p>
<p>“We had three major events in town and the only delay I hit was 30 seconds longer at a traffic signal.”</p>
<p>Hmmmm…that doesn’t sound robust.</p>
<p>The Rockin Ribfest was projected to bring in 40K over the weekend and I would not be surprised if they hit their target. Rockin Ribfest is a ribs contest with contestants from MA up to Canada. The public buys tickets to the even and gets to sample ribs from the contestents. There’s also rock music throughout and an airplane show.</p>
<p>I think that the mall opening wanted to piggyback on the Ribfest. I don’t have any numbers on the mall opening.</p>
<p>There was also a road race that started from the Anheiser-Busch plant (owned by InBev - did nicely on that buyout). Our town has about $28K people so the number of visitors was bigger than the population of the town.</p>
<p>I’d guess that the Clydesdales were on the property so visitors could tour the stables. The Bud plants also have free tours with free drinks (beer or soft) afterwards.</p>
<p>“The new mall did not have an impact on traffic? Is the new mall off to a slow start?”</p>
<p>Could be a slow start, could be good planning… When a huge Costco went up in my neck of the woods, traffic actually improved, because Costco paid for road widening and a new traffic light.</p>
<p>“Could be a slow start, could be good planning… When a huge Costco went up in my neck of the woods, traffic actually improved, because Costco paid for road widening and a new traffic light.”</p>
<p>Interesting. Is that what happened where you live, BCEagle91?</p>
<p>40k is a nice turnout. I guess time will tell if the ribfest helped the Mall.</p>
<p>I don’t remember if I ever owned Bud…If I did…it was a very, very long time go…</p>
<p>The mall was built by Simon Property Group and while they said that they could pay for improvements when they were pitching their plan to the town, they haven’t. There is a toll booth nearby and the state put extra staff on the tolls so that probably helped (most people use EasyPass - the automated toll collection system).</p>
<p>The financial reasons for the mall:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Attract affluent shoppers from Massachusetts that don’t want to pay sales taxes for their purchases. The problem is that Massachusetts exempts the first $175 of clothes from taxes. Another issue is that people in MA have far more options in Boston and in the Boston Suburbs. Parking is a lot easier in NH but I don’t know if it’s worth a 40 minute ride to get free parking.</p></li>
<li><p>Attract European tourists that want to ski + shop as they don’t have to pay the huge VAT for stuff that they buy here instead of at home. Well, Europe isn’t doing that well.</p></li>
<li><p>Attract Canadian shoppers that don’t want to pay their VAT. I do not know if they will all want to come down to Southern NH for shopping but I’m sure that many will. Canada is doing fairly well through the recession and they like to cheat on taxes similar to other places with high tax rates.</p></li>
<li><p>Cater to local NH residents - this should work - there’s a lot of wealth up here.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>BC, I’m sure the Canadian shoppers will come. Some enterpreneurial tour company will bring them by busloads, like they do around here - busloads of tourist shoppers travel 100 miles from Vancouver to a WA outlet mall, just like the one built in your neck of the woods.</p>
<p>The numbers scam…Weekly unemployment numbers come in at 386k, last week was 387k, so it remained the same,more or less,right??? NO, down 6K!!! how is that possible,you ask? Well, lastvweeks number was revised HIGHER to 392K, so,yes, the unemplyment picture is much better, down 6K…woohoo…what a crock of…</p>
<p>Thus the use of the four week moving average to fix that problrm</p>
<p>More sleaze…quite a bit of sleaze…the manipulation of libor which affected millions of loans…</p>
<p>[Barclays</a> Libor Fine Sends Stocks Lower as Probes Widen - Bloomberg](<a href=“Bloomberg - Are you a robot?”>Bloomberg - Are you a robot?)</p>
<p>The white collar stealing that goes on…</p>
<p>Oh…and JPM…hmmm…the 2 billion dollar loss looks a little understated…</p>
<p>The unemployment number…looked like a snorer…</p>
<p>I guess myproblem with todays number is it comes across as first time claims declined 6k…That was the headline…seems like it was good,if you read the headlines instead of digging a sentence or two into data to see the 4 week MA</p>
<p>Financial firms haven’t changed much ,have they? ,they live by the mantra ME,MYSELF, and I…</p>
<p>No the firms haven’t…</p>
<p>The firms are disgusting…</p>
<p>" me, myself, and I" looks correct to me…</p>
<p>Short term gains over long term benefits…</p>
<p>This has floated around the internet for awhile…</p>
<p>“Dummies Guide to what Went Wrong in Europe”</p>
<p>Helga is the proprietor of a bar. She realizes that virtually all of her customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such, can no longer afford to patronize her bar. To solve this problem she comes up with a new marketing plan that allows her customers to drink now, but pay later.</p>
<p>Helga keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers’ loans).</p>
<p>Word gets around about Helga’s “drink now, pay later” marketing strategy and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into Helga’s bar.</p>
<p>Soon she has the largest sales volume for any bar in town.</p>
<p>By providing her customers freedom from immediate payment demands Helga gets no resistance when, at regular intervals, she substantially increases her prices for wine and beer - the most consumed beverages.</p>
<p>Consequently, Helga’s gross sales volumes and paper profits increase massively. A young and dynamic vice-president at the local bank recognises that these customer debts constitute valuable future assets and increases Helga’s borrowing limit. He sees no reason for any undue concern, since he has the debts of the unemployed alcoholics as collateral.</p>
<p>He is rewarded with a six figure bonus.</p>
<p>At the bank’s corporate headquarters, expert traders figure a way to make huge commissions, and transform these customer loans into DRINKBONDS. These “securities” are then bundled and traded on international securities markets.</p>
<p>Naive investors don’t really understand that the securities being sold to them as “AA Secured Bonds” are really debts of unemployed alcoholics.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb and the securities soon become the hottest-selling items for some of the nation’s leading brokerage houses.</p>
<p>The traders all receive a six figure bonus.</p>
<p>One day, even though the bond prices are still climbing, a risk manager at the original local bank decides that the time has come to demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Helga’s bar. He so informs Helga.</p>
<p>Helga then demands payment from her alcoholic patrons but, being unemployed alcoholics, they cannot pay back their drinking debts. Since Helga cannot fulfil her loan obligations she is forced into bankruptcy. The bar closes and Helga’s 11 employees lose their jobs.</p>
<p>Overnight, DRINKBOND prices drop by 90%. The collapsed bond asset value destroys the bank’s liquidity and prevents it from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic activity in the community.</p>
<p>The suppliers of Helga’s bar had granted her generous payment extensions and had invested their firms’ pension funds in the BOND securities. They find they are now faced with having to write off her bad debt and with losing over 90% of the presumed value of the bonds. Her wine supplier also claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on a family business that had endured for three generations; her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor, who immediately closes the local plant and lays off 150 workers.</p>
<p>Fortunately though, the bank, the brokerage houses and their respective executives are saved and bailed out by a multibillion dollar no-strings attached cash infusion from the government.</p>
<p>They all receive a six figure bonus.</p>
<p>The funds required for this bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class, non-drinkers who’ve never been in Helga’s bar.</p>
<p>Now do you understand?"</p>
<p>That is terrific, love it…</p>
<p>:)…</p>
<p>That is great</p>
<p>yes quite awhile, started around 2010 ([Can</a> Someone Please Finally Explain What CDS Are To The Mainstream Media And The Greek Minister Of Prime | ZeroHedge](<a href=“Zerohedge”>Zerohedge)) but still timeless black comedy for me…</p>
<p>BCEagle91… Nice sell in NKE.</p>
<p>A bit of a puzzling report but I think that product costs include marketing costs these days and Nike has a lot of prime properties. I expected Nike or Adidas to pick up Djokovic when Sergio Tachini couldn’t afford to pay his incentive bonuses. He went with Uniglo (who?). Nike has Nadal and Federer and they certainly have enough exposure and probably didn’t have the money to put the top three in their stable.</p>
<p>I’ve been watching my Pro Stock Tennis racquets site and there’s great stuff getting marked down there. Stuff that is moving has to be priced right and it can still sit for a while. That tells me that Europeans aren’t spending money on the sports luxuries and Nike has to be affected. That inventories are building in China is a little bothersome too. Things seem fine here in the US - I think that they fixed their inventory problem by dumping merchandise to TJ Maxx.</p>
<p>My only stock in the green today was Equity Residential, + 1.73%. No idea as to why unless traders are expecting a continued trend towards luxury rentals in major metro markets.</p>