Rose is on his sales Marks
BRITAIN'S shoppers must have been saving up all their firepower for Christmas. After a dreadful year on the High Street, in which the British Retail Consortium and CBI issued ever more gloomy forecasts, consumers crowded the High Street over the holiday period in what turned out to be the best December since 2001.
Same space sales, the measure liked in the City, climbed 2.6% in December and 0.2% over the final quarter of the year. Total sales jumped an impressive 6.2%.
We know from those companies that already have released trading data that the picture is very mixed. Next, my share tip for 2006, did better than expected but was still 6% down, brokers estimate. Other dullards included JJB Sports and Games Workshop.
In contrast, there have been sparking numbers from Jessops, helped by the panic buying of digital cameras and from John Lewis and its food offshoot Waitrose. The big question - to be answered this morning - is how did the dowager of the High Street, Marks & Spencer, do?
In anticipation of a big revival the shares are above 500p, more than £1 higher than Philip Green's sighting shot at the company.
There clearly is concern at M&S that the favourable broker and media comment it recently has attracted might be overdone and anything less than a supercharged number will disappoint.
To be fair to M&S the best place to set the bar would be on the whole retail market which is 2.6%.
Below that, even if it is way ahead of rival Next, would be a trifle tame. Better would be pleasing. The City, employees and M&S's army of small investors, who played a key role in saving the company from takeover, want to see chief executive Stuart Rose back among the high achievers.
Green and yellow
WE haven't heard much from soothsayer George Soros of late. But it is hard to ignore the American-based pioneer of modern hedge funds.
Soros is joining the bears on the American economy. He fears that the Federal Reserve may overdo the present round of interest rate tightening and trigger a recession.
If American rates, presently standing at 4.25%, are pushed too high, then Soros believes a housing collapse could be triggered, dragging America into recession and forcing the value of the dollar down on foreign exchanges. There is time to think about all of this since Soros reckons the crisis will come in 2007.
He is not alone in his present dire predictions. Speaking in Jackson Hole last August Alan Greenspan, the departing chairman of the Federal Reserve, warned that the housing bubble might suddenly deflate.
As was noted in this space last week the build up of consumer debt at home and dollar debt overseas is giving rise to considerable concerns in Beijing, where holdings of the US currency have soared in recent years.
Even if people are over-borrowed, housing markets do not necessarily have to go through a Japanese style crash to adjust.
As we have seen in Britain an orderly decline in house price rises is possible with the Halifax disclosing that last year the rate of increase dropped from above 20% to 5.1%.
One sign that people are becoming really squeamish about the US debt mountain and borrowing is the buoyancy of the gold market. The bullion price shot up to its highest level in a quarter of a century in latest trading at $547-anounce.
Demand for gold has been assisted by the Chinese assertion that it is looking to diversify reserves. In addition it will have been helped by the flow of dollars into the Middle East and the conversion of some oil income into bullion. It was in the wake of the
Iranian revolution in 1979 and the subsequent loss of confidence in the dollar that gold had its greatest moment climbing to above $1000-an-ounce.
The Soros fears of an American meltdown, triggered by overblown property prices and credit, will add to caution about the greenback and lead to further switching into the yellow metal.
Double talk
HOW kind of the National Association of Estate Agents to send me two new year releases. The first, replete with crossings out, highlights an upbeat forecast of 100% rise in house prices predicted over the next 10-15 years.
It includes a list of helpful quotes for inquiring journalists on how Home Information Packs (HIPs) 'could lead to intense upward pressure on prices'.
The second simply records that the property market ended 2005 on a high and steers clear of bloodthirsty talk about HIPs. It is hard to credit that this fine body would be anything but upfront in public comment.
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