Sandy hurt retail sales and Macy's
With retail sales in November down because of Superstorm Sandy, shares of retailers Macy's Inc. fell 7 percent last week to a Friday close of $38.70 per share.
U.S. retailers reported disappointing sales for November despite seeing record sales during the Black Friday weekend. It's thought that November sales were negatively affected by Sandy, which hammered the East Coast.
More than two-thirds of retailers missed expectations, but many stores did better in the second half of the month, leaving many with hope for a good holiday season after all is said and done.
Overall, the 16 retailers tracked by Thomson Reuters reported an increase of 1.6 percent in same-store sales.
The Cincinnati, Ohio-based retailer operating under the Macy's and Bloomingdale's brands reported total sales of $2.5 billion for the month.
The company's same-store sales for the period fell by 0.7 percent.
The company operates more than 840 department stores in 45 states, including two in Northeast Pennsylvania.