Does Macy’s Have Pricing Power?

As we told you last week, one of Warren Buffett’s biggest stock picking secrets is to seek out companies with pricing power.

According to Bloomberg, “The single most important decision in evaluating a business is pricing power,” Buffett told the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in an interview released by the panel last week.

“If you’ve got the power to raise prices without losing business to a competitor, you’ve got a very good business. And if you have to have a prayer session before raising the price by 10 percent, then you’ve got a terrible business.”

And that leads to an obvious question. Which companies have pricing power?

Karen Finerman says Macy’s .

”They are an enormous player in the retail space and do over $25 billion a year in revenue,” she says. In other words they’re a customer with pricing power. “They can go to someone like Ralph Lauren and cut a pretty nice deal.”

”But in addition they have a very sizable private label business that allows them to control their margins,” she adds.

In other words Macy’s is a business that has influence over their purchase prices as well as the prices at which they sell.

”That’s purchasing power,” she says. ”At these valuations I’m a buyer, even with the uncertainty in the world.”.

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Trader disclosure: On Feb 23, 2011, the following stocks and commodities mentioned or intended to be mentioned on CNBC’s "Fast Money" were owned by the "Fast Money" traders; Seymour owns (AAPL); Seymour owns (BAC); Seymour owns (F); Seymour owns (FXI); Seymour owns (INTC); Seymour owns (STP); Seymour owns (TSL); Kinahan owns (BAC); Kinahan owns (C), is short (C) calls; Kinahan owns (CSCO); Kinahan owns (F); Kinahan owns (GE); Kinahan owns (MSFT) puts; Kinahan owns (NFLX) puts; Kinahan owns (WFC); Kinahan owns (YHOO); Finerman's Firm Is Short (IWM); Finerman's Firm Is Short (SPY); Finerman's Firm Is Short (MDY); Finerman's firm is short (XRT); Finerman's firm is short (IJR); Finerman's Firm Is Long S&P Puts; Finerman's Firm Is Long Russell 2000 Puts; Finerman's Firm And Finerman Own (AAPL); Finerman's Firm Owns (BAC) Leap, Finerman Owns (BAC); Finerman's Firm Owns (BBY); Finerman's Firm And Finerman Own (BP); Finerman's firm owns (FCX) puts; Finerman Owns (GOOG); Finerman's Firm And Finerman Own (HPQ); Finerman's Firm Owns (IBM); Finerman's Firm Owns (JPM), (JPM) Leap; Finerman Owns (JPM); Finerman's Firm Owns (M); Finerman's Firm And Finerman Own (MSFT)’ Finerman's Firm Owns (WMT); Jon Najarian owns (CHK), is short (CHK) calls; Jon Najarian owns (DTV), is short (DTV) calls; Jon Najarian owns (BP), is short (BP) calls;’ Jon Najarian owns (NBR), is short (NBR) calls; Jon Najarian owns (KWK), is short (KWK) calls; Jon Najarian owns (HPQ); Jon Najarian owns (MOS), is short (MOS) calls; Jon Najarian owns (ATML), is short (ATML) calls; Jon Najarian owns (LLTC), is short (LLTC) calls

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