Wal-Mart's rich customers, Mutual-fund managers' poor clients
Good day for lowering standards, bad day for sugarcoating bad news
Good day for: Lowering standards, as sales in Wal-Mart stores rose by 5 percent in April while the recession battered rival retailers. One reason for Wal-Mart's good fortune: Affluent shoppers who used to avoid the giant discounter are now coming in looking for bargains. More than a quarter of Wal-Mart's sales increase came from new shoppers, most of whom had household incomes of at least $50,000. Wal-Mart's wealthier customers spend 40 percent more per visit, on average, than the typical shopper. (BusinessWeek)
Bad day for: Sugarcoating bad news, as Bob Rodriquez of FPA Capital Fund told fellow mutual-fund managers that they did a terrible job in 2008, when the Standard & Poor's 500 Index dropped by 38 percent but most actively-managed stock funds did even worse. "In a word, we stunk," said Rodriguez, one of the industry's best-known managers, at the Morningstar Investment Conference last week. "We managers did not deliver the goods and we must explain why." (MarketWatch)
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
Are 'judge shopping' rules a blow to Republicans?
Today's Big Question How the abortion pill case got to the Supreme Court
By Joel Mathis, The Week US Published
-
Climate change is driving Indian women to choose sterilization
under the radar Faced with losing their jobs, they are making a life-altering decision
By Theara Coleman, The Week US Published
-
'A great culture will be lost if the EV brigade gets its way'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By Harold Maass, The Week US Published