Futures are up .75 points as we go to tape this morning. In the off-chance you haven't heard a member of the New York-dominated media complain about the weather yet this morning I'll point out that .75 is 25 basis points lower than the temperature in Times Square measured in Fahrenheit. In the name of a one-man effort to thaw 30 million icy hearts here are the best three things that happened this week.
1. The Nasdaq broke out with authority
Tech is on a tear, up seven straight days and 6% higher in the last month. Yesterday's close leaves Apple (AAPL) and the Pips just 1.5% from 5,000. A week ago I said it was a matter of when, not if. At this point it's not premature to start wagering on the arrival date. Think of it as a baby pool. For slightly personal reasons I'm placing my money on March 6th. That's two weeks from today. Media personnel: start planning your live specials accordingly.
2. Malls aren't dead
Forget the mediocre results from Walmart (WMT), this was a great week of consumer news. Forget about using the money you save at the pump to pay down debt. Americans are spending their gas booty on burgers and off-price fashion. While everyone was obsessing over Walmart, Nordstrom (JWN) held a conference call that pretty much debunked the entire "death of malls" meme.
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The people who once spent all day hanging out at the food courts and multiplex all-in-one malls of the 80s and 90s didn't all die. They're alive, well and hanging at the outlet stores. Nordstrom Rack is screaming. 17% growth at Rack and 25% growth for off-price overall. That's not a sign of desperation. Stuff made for outlets is cheaper to produce, not marked down high-end stuff. If you look at mall operators they'll tell you outlet mall shoppers stay longer and spend much more per visit. They don't even notice that most of the bargains are illusory. It's the idea that's appealing.
3. Greece doesn't matter
Within the range of likely outcomes for Greece this week, meaning not including stability on the positive side and crumbling into anarchy and getting taken over by Persia as a worst case outcome, things really couldn't have gone worse for Greece this week.
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The market could barely pretend to care. That doesn't make the market "stupid" no matter what you hear on TV. In fact, anyone claiming the stock market is somehow unaware of Greece is demonstrating intellectual shortcomings of their own in a way too ironic for they themselves to understand. The fact is markets don't crash because of things we've known about for five years.
George Soros as a person has a higher GDP than Greece the country. The lesson: don't sweat macro economic factors when you invest. You can't control them and there's no money in it. Assume the world isn't going to end and invest accordingly. If you're wrong and the planet does plunge into anarchy because of something Greece did your portfolio is the least of your concerns.
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