With the third quarter just around the corner, Morgan Keegan senior analyst Brad Stephens offered CNBC some ideas about buying retail stocks.   Read More

As expected, the ECB and the Bank of England left interest rates unchanged; the ECB at 4.0 percent. Futures dipped a bit at 8:50 am ET as Mr. Trichet began talking, giving his usual speech on the importance of combating inflation.    Read More

Wall Street has been busy figuring out where and when consumers will spend their rebate checks, even as the latest consumer sentiment numbers show U.S. consumers are more distressed than they've been since 1982.    Read More

March retail same store sales were weak, outside of discounters. Remember companies and analysts have been aggressively taking down first quarter estimates for over a month (as well as same store sales), but companies like JC Penney, Target, Gap, Abercrombie, and Kohls were all notably below expectations on same store sales.    Read More

Huh? Import prices from China rose 0.8 percent for the month. How did that happen? As one trader noted, "The days of importing deflation from China is over." Futures were also down as the February NY Fed survey was negative 11.7, the weakest since May 2003.    Read More

Friday's markets will likely continue to be vulnerable to credit worries. There are a few economic data points including import prices and the Empire State survey, both at 8:30 a.m. TIC data from the Treasury is released at 9 a.m. and industrial production comes out at 8:15 a.m. Consumer sentiment is due at 10 a.m.    Read More

Wild volatility has become such a norm in the stock market that it's impossible to imagine anything but another rocking week ahead.    Read More

Disappointing. Challenging. Uncertain. Short of expectations. Those are the words most heard from companies in this morning's December same store sales report. Large companies like Macy's, Gap, Abercrombie, and Ann Taylor reported sales below expectations.   Read More