General Merchandise Stores

Analysts at Barclays upgrade Dollar Tree Inc (NASDAQ: DLTR) from “equal weight” to “overweight.” The target price for DLTR is set to $58. DLTR shares fell 0.08% to close at $50.46 yesterday. More Analyst Ratings here

Analysts at Barclays downgrade Big Lots Inc (NYSE: BIG) from “overweight” to “equal weight.” The target price for BIG has been raised from $36 to $42. BIG shares fell 0.46% to close at $41.38 yesterday. More Analyst Ratings here

99c Only Stores (NYSE: NDN) has alluded to testing product above $0.99 in recent calls and it wrote about it after the 3Q11 earnings release. Deutsche Bank came away from its meetings with an increased sense of the potential. Rather than a few items, it now believes that NDN could add as much as...

Shares of Family Dollar Stores, Inc. (NYSE: FDO) are higher on the session by 0.43%, trading at $44.04. Overall put volume is now running at 2.01x the daily average, with 61% of all puts traded being purchases on the offer. 7,040 contracts have traded on the session so far. Family Dollar Stores,...

Legendary investor Bill Ackman has joined the J.C. Penney (NYSE: JCP) board along with Vornado Realty CEO (NYSE: VNO) Steven Roth. Ackman spoke about what he would like to do with the 108-year old retailer at the Harbor Investment Conference last week, saying he sees vast potential for the...

Shares of 99 Cents Only Stores (NYSE: NDN) are lower on the session by 0.25%, currently trading at $16.15. The stock has been moving largely sideways over the past four months, but recently popped above the 50-day and 200-day moving averages. Options traders are buying puts on the name today. A...

Here is a quick peek at stocks that have abnormally high daily put/call ratios today relative to their average…. 1. Cemex SaB (NYSE: CX) 4,684 puts, 110 calls 2. Gildan Activewear (NYSE: GIL) 3,761 puts, 133 calls 3. CIT Group (NYSE: CIT) 3,333 puts, 315 calls 4. Sara Lee Corp. (NYSE: SLE) 19,841...

European banks like HSBC (NYSE: HBC) are slowly moving towards reporting earnings every quarter, in an effort to increase transparency. Under the transparency section in their reports it currently needs: none. Big Lots (NYSE: BIG) is attempting to sell itself, as the stock has underperformed the...

Brian Sozzi of Wall Street Strategies is out with a research note discussing his latest potential idea for a retail company to go private. In the note, Sozzi picks Fred's, Inc. (NASDAQ: FRED) as his idea to most likely go public. There has been the continuous rumors that private-equity might bid...

Big Lots (NYSE: BIG) looking for strategic alternatives including a possible sale of the company, Bloomberg reports.

Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance fell by 42,000 last week to 415,000 (last week was revised up by 3,000, so one could see it as a 39,000 decline). This was a bit better than the expected level of 425,000. This is a welcome turnaround, but only partially negates last week's big increase....

Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance fell by 42,000 last week to 415,000 (last week was revised up by 3,000, so one could see it as a 39,000 decline). This was a bit better than the expected level of 425,000. This is a welcome turnaround, but only partially negates last week's big increase....

Target Corporation (NYSE: TGT) today reported that its net retail sales for the four weeks ended January 29, 2011 were $4,383 million, an increase of 2.2 percent from $4,289 million for the four weeks ended January 30, 2010. On this same basis, January comparable-store sales increased 1.7 percent.

Fred's Inc. (NASDAQ: FRED) today reported sales for the four-week fiscal month, quarter and year ended January 29, 2011. Fred's total sales for the month increased 3% to $129.1 million from $125.0 million in January 2010. Comparable store sales for the month rose 2.1% compared with a decline of 2....

99 Cents Only Stores today reported Q3 earnings of $0.38/share for December, in-line with Street consensus estimates of $0.38/share. Revenues for the chain rose 1.5% year-over-year to $354.1M versus the Street's $367.9M consensus. 99¢ Only Stores® (NYSE: NDN) announces its financial results for the...