Retail inventories up ahead of holidays amid more expected supply chain woes

Yahoo Finance Live's Brian Sozzi runs down the retailers that are reportedly well-stocked for the holiday shopping season as inventories rise in expectation of continued supply chain disruptions.

Video Transcript

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- Brian Sozzi loves retail, doesn't he? And so Sozz has been looking at these retail numbers that we've been getting from companies and trying to extrapolate what they mean for the holiday season, also what their commentary has meant for the holidays. Even though the message kind of going into the holidays in the media has been, buy now because you won't be able to get it later, what are we actually hearing from these companies?

BRIAN SOZZI: Well, you're hearing a lot of these companies look to be, at least initially, nicely prepared for the start of the holiday season. So perhaps you won't see those barren shelves in November. Maybe we'll just see them the second week in December.

And the great way to look through that, if you're an investor trying to see which retailer is positioned to meet what could be a very strong holiday shopping season, just check the inventories levels this year versus last year. And that's what I did right here. Yeah.

Lowe's inventory up 6%. Walmart up 10.9%. Target up 17%.

TJ Maxx takes the cake. Unclear where they're getting all this inventory from, just given the lean inventory levels at department stores, where they historically get a lot of their inventory. TJ Maxx inventory up 32% year over year.

We're going to have to ding Kohl's here, their inventory coming out of the third quarter only up 1% here. Might be some market share loss potential there for Kohl's during the holiday season because they have no inventory.

And you hop on the earnings calls, Julie, and you're getting a sense that at least some well-run companies are, in fact, prepared. I look at what Target COO John Mulligan said on their conference call yesterday. Quote, "We believe we're well-positioned for the fall and ready to deliver strong growth on top of last year's record increases."

Heard something similar by Walmart CFO Brett Biggs on their earnings call earlier in the week. Quote, "Despite the various macro and industry challenges, our inventory position is good. Stores and fulfillment centers are well-staffed and our price position remains strong."

So all in all, you're seeing a lot of retailers, I think, that try to plan ahead for these supply chain bottlenecks. And some are doing it well. And some, like Kohl's, just don't get it.

- Any way you slice it, I better get shopping for that holiday present that you are anxiously awaiting, Brian Sozzi.