Howard Davidowitz Last Quotations

One big difference was that last year retailers kept promotions under tight control. Things were more panicky this year.

Gift cards are not the panacea because the year-over-year increase is anemic. Because the markdowns in January will be more than last year, retailers will see less dollar impact of additional sales from gift cards compared to last year.

I think the real story last month was that in spite of higher interest rates, exploding energy costs and debt levels, the American consumer rolls on.

Over the last year, they lost $60 million,

Wal-Mart over the last five years has been able to grow its same-store sales at 6 to 7 percent. Now that growth has dwindled to 2 or 3 percent. I call this a gigantic change.

The performance of the company over the last few years has been very erratic. It's also a smaller player. It was time for Milstein to take it easy and make a gigantic pot of money and turn the ball over to someone else.