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Retailers Ring Alarm Bells for the Holiday Season
Retailers are ringing bells as they head into the holiday shopping season—alarm bells, in many cases. “Corporate earnings from big apparel retailers have been shockingly bad,” say economists at BNP Paribas. Some have reported inventory backups that suggest demand is slowing, a threat to fourth-quarter economic output after a third quarter that turned out to be better than initially estimated. The government on Tuesday revised up its third-quarter GDP reading, thanks to rising stockpiles at retailers and elsewhere. That inventory build may wind up hurting fourth-quarter output, however, when those stocks are ... (full story)