April Retail Roundup: Discounters Come out Ahead

The news: Anemic retail sales in April shouldn't surprise anybody. Any gain was attributed to Easter happening in March this year, creating one more weekend trading day in April 2008 than in 2007. If you combine March and April, the Wall Street Journal said, sales rose 1.1 percent, right in line with the year.

The big winners: Discounters and teen clothing stores, including Buckle (up 34 percent) and Aeropostale (up 25 percent). Analysts see higher-income shoppers "trading down" to T.J. Maxx and Marshalls (up 8 percent), Costco (up 5 percent, excluding fuel) and Wal-Mart (up 3.2 percent, ditto).

The big losers: Department stores catch the short end of this zero-sum game, with Nordstrom down 3.8 percent and Dillard's down 4 percent.

The outlier: Saks' comps rose 23.9 percent, just a hair higher than the 1.1 percent forecast. Saks says strong promotions lifted sales in high-end women's clothing, jewelry, shoes, and handbags, and men's apparel and shoes. Wonder how much of that flew back to London, Moscow and Shanghai, where shoppers are positively gleeful about the weak dollar.