No Joke: Kmart Reports Strong December Sales

December sales figures are coming in, and this especially caught our attention — Kmart posted really good numbers. The discounter’s same-store sales rose 5.3% year over year during the month.

Strong sales of toys, home furnishings and apparel benefited the chain. Over the course of 2009, the monthly same-store sales average at Kmart was a 0.7% drop.

Video: Retail Sales ‘Not Getting Any Worse’

We guess this is good news. But BB&T Capital Markets analyst Andy Wolf also points out that “the higher the ticket, the worse it is.”

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Is Apparel Doomed This Year?

Msnbc.com interviews some of our favorite analysts about the state of apparel in today’s retail environment, and it’s not pretty. Apparently, consumers just aren’t buying clothes because they NEED to buy food and gas, which are both rising in cost and taking precedence over the newest Abercrombie T-shirt.

A quote by C. Britt Beemer, an analyst at America’s Research Group, is telling. “I’ve done research for 29 years, and what I’m seeing today I can’t compare to anything I’ve seen before,” he said.

Ouch.

Will Casual Dining Get Hit Next?

We’ve seen conflicting reports lately on the state of casual dining.

The most recent article reports on a Friedman, Billings, Ramsey analyst note earlier this week that said California Pizza Kitchen, Cheesecake Factory and P.F. Chang’s China Bistro will all face negative impacts from housing woes in Arizona, California and Florida, as consumers in those states cut spending.

But another report just last week had a Raymond James analyst upgrading Brinker International, P.F. Chang’s and many other chains. Analyst Bryan C. Elliott said demand in the sector is stabilizing, and many casual-dining chains could have better-than-expected results.

Could a Bodybuilder Single-Handedly Stop the Consumer Slowdown?

We think that if German bodybuilder Markus Rühl decides to go grocery shopping more often, he could single-handedly stop the consumer slowdown. (Courtesy of atomini.)