Wednesday announced another US retail chain, Dick’s Sporting Goods, that 2022 will be worse than previously thought. The reason is “challenging macroeconomic conditions”. Paradoxically, the XXL-like company’s top and bottom line in the first quarter were better than expected. At four o’clock, the share price was down by well over 6 per cent.
A couple of other retailers in the US, Nordstrom and Express, on the other hand, revised their forecasts for the entire financial year. Both were rewarded with a price increase of around 6 percent. It helped that expectations in advance were very low. Both retail chains made a staggering loss in the first quarter.
Among the IT-related the shares received Lyft even more beatings. The price plunged 17 percent on Tuesday, and the downturn continued on Wednesday. The Uber rival put forward plans to reduce its spending and limit employment. The taxi platforms’ shareholders have lost 63 and 51 per cent, respectively, since the new year.
In Europe, it was confirmed that Germany’s GDP increased by 0.2 percent from the fourth quarter of last year to the first quarter of 2022, mainly as a result of increased construction activity and investments in machinery. From the same period the year before, the increase was 4 per cent. Europe’s largest economy shrank in the fourth quarter of 2021, so growth in the following period meant that the Germans narrowly avoided a recession.
By the way, most people think economists that the United States will also avoid two consecutive quarters of declining economic activity. The country’s GDP weakened by 1.4 per cent in the first quarter, but for the period April-June the average estimate is 2.7 per cent. However, sharp declines in the stock market and weakness in some leading indicators may signal that actual developments are becoming more anemic.
Last Wednesday, disappointing statistics came in for US orders for durable goods. The level rose by 0.4 per cent from March to April, but the banks had envisaged a growth of 0.6 per cent. In the previous month, the increase was 1.1 per cent.
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