Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Our first question today is from John Heinbockel and please state your company name.
John Heinbockel - Goldman Sachs
Steve, a couple of things; if you look at the up-tick in ID momentum here in the last five weeks, could you talk about how broad-based that is? Is it traffic or ticket? And do you find the customer, as you look at the data, doing anything strange because there has been a lot of talk in the last couple of weeks about the customer being paralyzed and just kind of going into a bit of a cocoon, so any color on that would be great.
Steven A. Burd
Sure. First of all, I would tell you that the sales up-tick is very broad-based. As I look at what we call our 10 operating regions of the company, virtually all 10 operating regions are running stronger than they ran in the third quarter and we don’t find anything particularly strange about the consumer behavior.
John Heinbockel - Goldman Sachs
Traffic versus ticket -- is there anything interesting there?
Steven A. Burd
Yeah, there is, quite frankly because we’ve struggled as you know with traffic and traffic and ticket are both up through the first almost five weeks of the quarter.
John Heinbockel - Goldman Sachs
All right. Secondly, if you look at the fourth quarter, where it does appear that you are looking for a better EBIT margin performance out of the retail business, is that more comp momentum in what that does to expenses or do you think you dialed back the level of price investment or do you keep that the same?
Steven A. Burd
No, I don’t see any dialing back in the price investment. I see better results on the O&A line. I see a bit of leverage from the sales line and then keep in mind that two things that really drive the fourth quarter in terms of its comparison to last year is we are in a 53-week year and of course Blackhawk's business is largely a fourth quarter game. And with the sales and income growth of Blackhawk, that provides a very nice growth for the fourth quarter.
John Heinbockel - Goldman Sachs
All right, and then finally how is lifestyle doing in this economy? You know, are you seeing the up-lift in comp soften a bit? I imagine maybe you have. And secondly to go along with that, is it at all possible that, I know you were going to basically end lifestyle, the remodel effort at the end of ’09. Could that be moved up a bit, say six months, if the lift from lifestyle has ebbed here in this economy?
- To read the full transcript on Seeking Alpha, click here »
