Tiffany & Co., the world’s second-largest luxury jewelry retailer and a major player in the U.S. retail sector, has cut its earnings and sales forecast for 2012, citing a pull-back in consumer spending on the part of its well-heeled customers. This is an ominous sign for 2012, according to Michael Lombardi, lead contributor to popular financial newsletter Profit Confidential.
New York, NY (PRWEB) January 16, 2012
The news sent the Tiffany retail sector shares down just over 10% Tuesday. The company’s stock price fell from $80.00 in late October 2011 to under $60.00 on January 10, 2012.
“I’ve been saying that 2012 is going to be a difficult year,” says Lombardi. “Tiffany’s warning on its retail sector profit and revenue this year is just the first of many signs I believe we will get that the U.S. economy is slowing.”
According to Profit Confidential, demand for fine jewelry in both Tiffany’s U.S. and European outlets fell short of expectations during the holiday season.
Lombardi points out that the high-end retail sector weathered the 2008 and 2009 financial crisis quite well, but that the sector is now buckling under the pressure of a slowing economy in both Europe and the U.S.
“Tiffany’s early warning shows that even the wealthy don’t feel confident about their situations and the direction the economies in both the U.S. and Europe are headed,” says Lombardi.
Lombardi believes that if you include a slowing Chinese economy in the equation, it is almost impossible to see the U.S. escaping the slow economic grind it will face as economic growth in both Europe and China erode.
Profit Confidential, which has been published for over a decade now, has been widely recognized as predicting five major economic events over the past 10 years. In 2002, Profit Confidential started advising its readers to buy gold-related investments when gold traded under $300 an ounce. In 2006, it “begged” its readers to get out of the housing market...before it plunged.
Profit Confidential was among the first (back in late 2006) to predict that the U.S. economy would be in a recession by late 2007. The daily e-letter correctly predicted the crash in the stock market of 2008 and early 2009. And Profit Confidential turned bullish on stocks in March of 2009 and rode the bear market rally from a Dow Jones Industrial Average of 6,440 on March 9, 2009, to 12,876 on May 2, 2011, a gain of 99%.
To see the full article and to learn more about Profit Confidential, visit http://www.profitconfidential.com.
Profit Confidential is Lombardi Publishing Corporation’s free daily investment e-letter. Written by financial gurus with over 100 years of combined investing experience, Profit Confidential analyzes and comments on the actions of the stock market, precious metals, interest rates, real estate, and the economy. Lombardi Publishing Corporation, founded in 1986, now with over one million customers in 141 countries, is one of the largest consumer information publishers in the world. For more on Lombardi, and to get the popular Profit Confidential e-letter sent to you daily, visit http://www.profitconfidential.com.
Michael Lombardi, MBA, the lead Profit Confidential editorial contributor, has just released his most recent update of Critical Warning Number Six, a breakthrough video with Lombardi’s current predictions for the U.S. economy, stock market, U.S. dollar, euro, interest rates and inflation. To see the video, visit http://www.profitconfidential.com/critical-warning-number-six.
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Michael Lombardi
Lombardi Publishing Corporation
905-856-2022
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