The luxury sector has been in the headlines this week, though the outlook has been muddled.  High-end home goods retailer Williams-Sonoma (WSM) beat earnings estimates on Wednesday, initially sending shares higher.  Unfortunately, the details were a lot less impressive.  Overall, sales were up 12.3% and same-store sales were up 8.4%… but the retailer had to...Read More

Have you ever noticed that new “premium” vodka brands seem to pop up every other year, yet the quality scotch brands you see on shelves today are the same ones you might have seen in your grandfather’s liquor cabinet? There is a reason for that. Vodka is colorless, flavorless and can be mass produced from...Read More

“A few years ago, I said: if people do not watch it, Europe will become an open-air museum for traveling Chinese. Well, we are halfway there.” The quote above was from a Financial Times interview with Johann Rupert, Chairman of the Swiss-based Richemont (Switzerland:CFR), the second largest luxury goods group in the world (see “Tourist...Read More

It’s a peculiar sort of problem when your economy grows at 8.1% in the first quarter and yet talk abounds of a “hardRead More

In the interconnected web of the global economy, the rise of China has been one of the biggest drivers of the decade-long bull market in energy and commodities. But China is also making its presence felt in other less obvious areas of the economy. Yes, it would appear that affluent Chinese are driving a global...Read More