A spokesperson for IKEA in China said the Swedish home furnishings multinational had, like B&Q, been impacted by the economic downturn.

Linda Xu, public relations manager for the company, admitted times were difficult for the home improvement market.

"We can also see the negative impact to IKEA's business from the global financial turbulence. We see the customer is more cautious about spending money. We, however, have more visitors to our stores but less spending on average," she said.

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PriceSmart Inc. said Wednesday that its profit rose 34 percent in the fiscal second quarter on improved sales.

The warehouse club operator earned $12.7 million, or 43 cents per share. That compares with $9.5 million, or 33 cents per share, a year ago.

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TORONTO, April 8 (Reuters) - Forzani Group (FGL.TO) plans to open more than 25 new stores this year as the country's biggest sporting goods retailer takes advantage of a weak economy and an increase in available property.

Calgary-based Forzani, whose banners include Sport Chek, Sports Experts and Coast Mountain Sports, said on Wednesday it had earmarked about C$30 million to C$35 million for capital expenditures in its 2010 fiscal year, mostly for the store openings.

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Woolworths Limited (WOW) said first quarter sales were up 9.6% to $12.82 billion.

The company also maintained its full year sales outlook. Chief executive officer Michael Luscombe said it was a good start to the financial year.

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The supermarket Wm Morrison said yesterday it would open small shops for the first time as the economic downturn gave it scope to speed up its expansion.

Marc Bolland, chief executive, said the group had identified more than 100 locations for new stores and had halted a £1bn share buyback to "preserve its firepower". The recession has weighed heavily on commercial property values and Morrisons said it wanted "maximum financial flexibility" to go shopping for stores.

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Hardware chain Clas Ohlson has reported a lower-than-expected drop in pre-tax profit for its third quarter, even as sales were up by a modest amount. For the quarter, pre-tax profit was down 8.7% to SEK240.2m (E21.3m), compared to SEK263m last year, beating analyst expectations of a profit of SEK227m. Sales meanwhile rose by 3% year-on-year to SEK1.54bn.

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Turkish low-cost retailer BIM - known in the trade as “the Turkish Aldi” - aims to open forty stores in Morocco this year and invest 110 million lira (£55 million) as part of its current aggressive expansion. This is largely on the back of predictions that hard discounters will ultimately fare well in the global economic downturn. BIM has added that lower raw material costs would help maintain a “normal, acceptable” fourth quarter profit margin after a drop in the third quarter which concerned analysts.

At Is Invest, analysts said that higher operating and financial expense due to foreign exchange loss and interest expenses caused the lower bottom line in 4Q08 and 4Q07, adding that low prices make BIM the firm least affected in Turkey during the financial crisis.

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Empire Co, owner of the Sobeys supermarket chain, has seen its third-quarter net profit rise by a better-than-expected 27% to C$48.6m. Excluding capital losses and other items, the company earned 99 Canadian cents per share. Revenue for the quarter was up 9% to C$3.8bn. At Sobeys, overall sales were up 8.8% to C$3.74bn, while same-store sales rose by 7.6%.

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The Delhaize group has seen its fourth-quarter net profit jump a better-than-expected 30.5% to E149m, from E114m in the previous year, helped by growing demand for its own-brand products and the effects of a stronger US dollar. Operating profit was up 18.8% year-on-year to E288.7m, and it had earlier announced that sales rose by 15.8% to E5.4bn.

The company, which earns over two-thirds of its revenue in the US, has been one of the few multi-national chains to benefit from the strength of the US dollar, which helped boosts its figures. Delhaize noted that it also benefitted from an extra reporting week in the fourth quarter this year. The results beat the company's guidance range, and CEO Pierre-Olivier Beckers said this was due to "increased private brand sales, continued efficiencies and disciplined cost management".

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Ross Stores Inc.’s same-store sales in January fell 1 percent year over year while overall sales were up 4 percent.
Pleasanton-based Ross (NASDAQ: ROST) on Thursday reported sales of $365 million for the four weeks ending Jan. 31, compared with sales of $350 million in the comparable period of 2008.
Ross put its sales for the fourth quarter ending Jan. 31 at $1.73 billion, up 5 percent compared with $1.65 billion for the comparable period last year. Same-store sales for the fourth quarter were down 1 percent versus a year ago.

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Bloomberg
Yoshinoya Holdings Co., Japan's largest chain of beef-bowl restaurants, plans to add a record 100 outlets in its home market next fiscal year as demand for budget meals increases from recession-hit consumers.

The Tokyo-based company aims to increase restaurants in Japan to at least 1,194 by February 2010 and accelerate an expansion in China, adding 60 outlets to the 185 already open there, President Shuji Abe said.

"The market is harsh but conditions for investing and opening new stores are positive," Abe said in an interview broadcast Thursday on Bloomberg Television.'

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When Will This Recession Finally End?

There's really just one question that matters this new year. When will the recession end?

OK, I lied. There's another question that matters even more. Will the recession ever end?
I have a lot of institutional clients who take very seriously the idea that this recession could be permanent. In their minds, it could turn out to be more like a depression. Even when we pull out of the worst of it, we'll be stuck with year after year of slow growth.
Pretty much no one thinks this recession could possibly already be over. And only a few brave souls dare to consider that it might only take another quarter or so to hit bottom. So it's just a matter of, how bad is it really?
Call me crazy, but I actually think we could all end up being pretty pleasantly surprised. I admit I was one of the last people on earth to agree we were in recession in the first place. So let me make up for that mistake: I'll be the first person to say it's over.
I don't mean to get carried away on wings of optimism here. But there really are some hopeful signs. Some of the same symptoms that, earlier this year, gave us an early warning that recession was lurking are now pointing in a more hopeful direction.

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Though 2008 was wrought with layoffs and economic struggles, the New Year means rejuvenated hope for job seekers.

While several companies continue to make mass layoffs, other companies are shifting their focus to hire aggressively in the beginning of 2009.

"This is a difficult economy, no doubt," says Andrea Hough, vice president of talent acquisition for ServiceMaster, a lawn care and landscape maintenance company. "However, I would caution job seekers to be thoughtful about whom they are going to work for and not act out of desperation. There are some very strong companies with solid ethics in need of employees eager to be a part of a thriving organization."

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Manufacturing rises by highest amount in 9 years, bouncing off a dismal performance in the previous month, according to a Federal Reserve report.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Industrial production grew in October, after September produced the worst dropoff in factory output in 62 years, according to a report released Monday by the Federal Reserve.
Industrial production grew a seasonally adjusted 1.3% from the previous month, surpassing the economists' consensus estimate of a 0.2% increase, according to Briefing.com. It was the largest monthly increase in factory output since October 1999.
Factory output in October only increased because production in September fell by a revised 3.7%. The Fed said September's poor output was due mainly to Hurricanes Gustav and Ike's disastrous effects on the Gulf Coast industry as well as a Boeing workers' strike that month. September's was the worst month-to-month decline since February 1946.

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US shares echoed gains in stock markets worldwide on hopes that new stimulus plans in the US and other countries will revive global economic growth.

The Dow Jones index ended Monday up 299 points or 3.5% to 8,932, shrugging off Friday's grim unemployment data. The Nasdaq and S&P's 500 also gained.

In the UK, the FTSE 100 ended up 6.2%, while Germany's Dax added 7.6%, and France's Cac finished up 8.7%.Earlier in the day, stock markets around Asia also raced ahead.

"Despite bad US jobs data [announced on Friday], markets are gaining on a sense that they've hit the bottom and expectations for economic stimulus measures being put out by many governments," said Hiroake Osakabe at Chibagin Asset Management.

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Why all those Great Depression analogies are wrong.

By Daniel GrossPosted Saturday, Nov. 22, 2008, at 7:35 AM ET
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Over the last few days, I've had numerous emails from you asking: is the global financial system actually going to melt down? Will the various bailout packages on the table work?
Let's use those questions to dive into two of the five steps in the next-gen business construction kit we discussed here recently: how the macro landscape is changing, and what new DNA is.

Here's the good news. We're probably not in for a full-blown depression - one characterized by 25% unemployment, for example. We're probably in for a protracted period of stagnation and malaise. Japan's been going through one for the last two decades, and the Japanese banking crisis is the closest parallel to today's global pandemic.

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ZURICH -- UBS AG Tuesday confirmed that it swung to a third-quarter net profit, its first following four consecutive quarterly losses after booking more than $46 billion in mortgage-related write-downs.

The Zurich-based bank said net profit for the period ended Sept. 30 was 296 million Swiss francs ($251.9 million), aided by a tax credit and gains on own credit, after a year-ago net loss of 858 million francs.


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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Naysayers who predicted the U.S. dollar's demise as the world reserve currency of choice have been silent of late given the greenback's meteoric recovery in recent months.

Slammed over the last several years as U.S. government budget and trade deficits mounted, the greenback was seen ceding its status as the predominant currency to the euro.

Talk of nations reducing their dollar reserves in favor of the euro prompted talk the dollar would also lose favor as the medium of exchange for commodities.

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By JENNIFER LOVEN, AP White House Correspondent Jennifer Loven, Ap White House Correspondent

WASHINGTON – An impatient White House prodded banks and other financial companies Tuesday to quit hoarding billions of dollars flowing into their vaults from Washington and start making more loans. Wall Street soared nearly 900 points on bargain-hunting and hopes of a hefty interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve.

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