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The company also announced a 4.2 billion euro dividend payout to shareholders equating to 1.34 euros per share, subject to shareholder approval.
While the board approved a share buyback of 1.5 billion euros to be executed by the end of 2023.

An engine undergoes assembly at the Stellantis Dundee Engine Complex on August 18, 2022 in Dundee, Michigan.
Bill Pugliano | Getty Images

Carmaker Stellantis on Wednesday announced record full-year results, reporting a 26% rise in net profit to 16.8 billion euros ($17.9 billion) and a 41% annual jump in global battery and electric vehicle sales.
The Dutch-headquartered company, formed in 2021 from the merger of Italian-American conglomerate Fiat Chrysler group and France’s PSA Group, said net revenues rose 18% to 179.6 billion euros on the back of “strong net pricing, favorable vehicle mix and positive FX translation effects.”

Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares said the results also demonstrated the effectiveness of the company’s electrification strategy in Europe, with 288,000 battery and electric vehicle (BEV) sales in 2022 and 23 BEVs now on the market.
This figure is expected to double to 47 models by the end of 2024, and Stellantis is targeting global BEV sales of 5 million by 2030.
“We now have the technology, the products, the raw materials, and the full battery ecosystem to lead that same transformative journey in North America, starting with our first fully electric Ram vehicles from 2023 and Jeep from 2024,” Tavares said.

“My deep appreciation to each and every employee, and our partners, for their contributions to a more sustainable future.”
The company also announced a 4.2 billion euro dividend payout to shareholders equating to 1.34 euros per share, subject to shareholder approval, while the board approved a share buyback of 1.5 billion euros to be executed by the end of 2023.

Stellantis is one of the world’s largest carmakers and is known for individual auto brands like Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Dodge, Fiat, Jeep and Peugeot.
Stellantis shares nudged 1.6% higher during early trade in Europe.
Correction: The headline of this story has been updated with an accurate description for the $4.47 billion dividend.

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Bentley Motors plans to end production of its 12-cylinder engine next April as the famed luxury carmaker transitions to electric vehicles.
The British automaker of ultra-luxury performance cars said the milestone would be celebrated with the most powerful version of the W12 engine ever created.
The end of the W12 is the latest example of automakers pivoting to all-electric vehicles.

A staff member checks a Bentayga SUV on the Bentley production line at their factory in Crewe, Britain, December 7, 2022. 
Phil Noble | Reuters

Bentley Motors plans to end production of its 12-cylinder engine next April as the famed luxury carmaker transitions to electric vehicles.
The British automaker of ultra-luxury performance cars said the milestone would be celebrated with the most powerful version of the W12 engine ever created, with 740 horsepower and 737 pound-feet of torque.

Bentley said the upgraded engine will only be used in 18 Bentley Baturs — handcrafted two-seat performance cars that start at about $2 million. The vehicles are already sold, the prestigious automaker said.
“The time has come to retire this now-iconic powertrain as we take strides toward electrification,” Bentley Chairman and CEO Adrian Hallmark said in a release.  
The end of the W12 is the latest example of automakers pivoting to all-electric vehicles. Bentley last year said it would spend 2.5 billion pounds (about $3 billion) over the next decade to become a fully electric luxury brand by 2030.
The company, which is owned by Volkswagen, said a limited number of W12 engines with 649 horsepower are available for versions of the Continental GT, Bentayga and Flying Spur.
Production of the W12 engine will be replaced with expanded assembly of V8 and V6 hybrid engines, according to the company. Bentley says it has produced more than 100,000 of the W12 engines since the assembly began in 2003.

The company said it plans to transition the 30 employees who manufacture the engine at its famed Crewe, England, plant to other operations.
Bentley’s all-electric vision is in line with other automakers, but it differs greatly from its famed rival, Ferrari. The Italian sports car manufacturer, which currently produces V6, V8 and V12 engines, has said it will continue to do so as long as there is sufficient demand for them.

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Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw pledged support for East Palestine, Ohio, as it contends with the aftermath of a toxic chemical release caused by a train derailment.
The Environmental Protection Agency ordered the company to handle and pay for all cleanup efforts.
“If folks are experiencing symptoms with which they’re not accustomed, I would strongly encourage them to go see a trusted medical professional,” Shaw told CNBC.

Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw told CNBC he thinks it’s safe for families to return to East Palestine, Ohio, nearly three weeks after toxic chemicals were released following a train derailment earlier this month.
Asked by CNBC’s Morgan Brennan whether he’d bring his children to the town, Shaw said: “Yes, yes, I’ve come back multiple times. I’m drinking the water here. I’ve interacted with the families here.”

The company will also continue to help residents of the town, as well, Shaw said.
On Feb. 3, a Norfolk Southern freight train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed, igniting a dayslong fire. The environmental magnitude of the derailment could remain unknown for years and more testing may be required. Officials have said air levels are safe and the town’s water is free of harmful levels of contaminants, although residents have expressed skepticism about those assurances.
“Our focus right now is on environmental remediation, cleaning up this site, continual air monitoring, water monitoring, financial assistance to the residents of this community, and investing in this community so that the community in East Palestine can thrive,” Shaw said in an interview that aired Tuesday.
Earlier Tuesday, the federal Environmental Protection Agency ordered the company to handle and pay for all cleanup efforts. It will require Norfolk Southern to clean any contaminated soil and water resources, reimburse the EPA for cleaning services and participate in public meetings at the EPA’s request.
A company spokesperson told CNBC Norfolk Southern has been in communication with the agency and in compliance with its requests since the incident.

Ron Fodo, Ohio EPA Emergency Response, looks for signs of fish and also agitates the water in Leslie Run creek to check for chemicals that have settled at the bottom following a train derailment that is causing environmental concerns on February 20, 2023 in East Palestine, Ohio.
Michael Swensen | Getty Images

Three days after the derailment, the company’s independent consultant and the Ohio EPA recommended unified command for a controlled release to burn off toxic chemicals, including known carcinogens.
“The fact that we knew at that time that the pressure relief valves on the cars had failed, temperatures were rising, caused our independent expert to become very concerned about the potential for an uncontrolled explosion that would shoot harmful gas and shrapnel into a populated community,” Shaw said.
The air monitoring picked up no traces of toxic chemicals, officials said, although Shaw acknowledges “how it could scare folks.”
Ohio opened a new health clinic Tuesday to address increasing reports of headaches, nausea and rashes in East Palestine. Worried residents also reported dead fish and chickens as authorities said it’s safe to return. As early as this week, medical teams from the U.S. Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention and the US Department of Health are expected to arrive in the community.

A ‘traumatic experience’

Shaw said air monitoring was installed within an hour of the derailment, and water monitoring was in place several hours afterward. He said all tests for air and water have come back clean, but he said the community can get additional air and water testing in their homes.
“If folks are experiencing symptoms with which they’re not accustomed, I would strongly encourage them to go see a trusted medical professional,” Shaw said, acknowledging it has been a “traumatic experience.”
Tests have revealed no signs of carcinogens including vinyl chloride in the environment, officials said. Still, there remains the possibility that the full impact won’t surface until years from now. Shaw said some researchers have said this is not a concern and testing will continue into the future.
Shaw said the company so far removed about 450 cubic yards of contaminated soil and secured about 1.1 million gallons of contaminated water. He said the company will continue to “do the right thing for this community” and see the recovery effort all the way through. He did not lay out a time frame.

Shaw said it’s safe for families to return to the community as environmental remediation with the Ohio EPA is underway. He said Norfolk Southern has reimbursed or committed a “downpayment” of $6.5 million to East Palestine and will continue financial assistance to residents.
The company previously offered residents $1,000 “inconvenience” checks, but a Cleveland attorney cautioned residents these checks would get residents to waive future claims against the company. Shaw in the interview denied the lawyer’s claims after the company made public statements that doing testing absolved Norfolk Southern of no liability.
“I know they’re hurt. I know they’re scared. I know they’re confused. They’re looking for information and who to trust,” Shaw said.
Shaw said Norfolk Southern is fully cooperating with the NTSB and the FRA to come up with the root cause of the derailment. He avoided talking about security footage showing a wheel shooting off sparks about 20 miles before the derailment.
“We’re going to be here tomorrow. We’re going to be here a year from now. We’re going to here five years from now. We’re going to do what’s right for this community and help this community get back on its feet and help this community thrive,” Shaw said.

Responding to criticism

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg sent a letter Sunday to Norfolk Southern, warning that the company must “demonstrate unequivocal support for the people” of East Palestine.
Buttigieg wrote that Norfolk Southern and other rail companies have “spent millions of dollars in the courts and lobbying members of Congress to oppose common-sense safety regulations, stopping some entirely and reducing the scope of others.”
Some companies have adopted precision-scheduled railroading, which includes running longer trains, and cutting costs and headcounts to create a more effective network — and potentially profit.
In response, Shaw said Norfolk Southern invests over $1 billion a year in “science-based soutions,” including maintaining tracks, equipment and technology.
Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said in a CNN interview that railroads “are simply not investing the way they should in car safety and the rail lines themselves,” resulting in layoffs and stock buybacks.
“It’s pretty clear that our safety culture and our investments in safety didn’t prevent this accident,” Shaw said in response. “We need to take a look at this and see what we can do differently and what we can do better.”

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“Choiceful, discerning, thoughtful.” That is how Walmart’s boss, Doug McMillon, described consumers on the American retail giant’s quarterly earnings call on February 21st. That may be so. What they are not, at least in aggregate, is careful, thrifty or frugal. Last year consumer spending increased even as real disposable income declined by more than 6%. The splurge continued in January, as America shopped its way through a warm winter, buoyed by 517,000 new jobs and a sizeable inflation-linked bump in social-security payments. Last month retail sales rose by 3% month on month, and consumer sentiment reached its highest level in more than a year. Those looking for evidence of a “soft landing”, where the economy avoids a recession despite tighter monetary policy, found solace in the American consumer.On the surface, Walmart’s fourth-quarter results look like exhibit A for the optimists. The company’s comparable sales in America grew by a faster-than-expected 8.3%, compared with a year earlier. Look closer, though, and the earnings are full of warning signs. A big reason for Walmart’s market-share gains in groceries was cash-strapped consumers, including high-income families, trading down from fancier supermarkets. Its higher-margin discretionary offering, which includes toys, clothes and homeware, did less well. That was despite heavy discounting of wares in order to clear inventories overstocked as a result of post-pandemic miscalculation about shoppers’ appetite for things like garden furniture. Most troubling, Walmart forecast sales growth of 2.5-3% for the current fiscal year, below analysts’ expectations.Other retailers tell a similar story, more poignantly. Home Depot, which also reported its results on February 21st, disclosed its seventh successive year-on-year decline in transaction volumes—and this quarter, for the first time, it was not offset by growth in the average size of transactions. The company’s share price fell by more than 7% on the news. Shoppers’ baskets may get lighter still as jitters hit the housing market: according to Barclays, a bank, the more the asking price for properties fall, the less consumers spend on an average trip to Home Depot.Following a pandemic-era blow-out, investors expect retailers’ margins to narrow. Although the worst labour shortages have subsided, wages remain high. In the case of Walmart and Home Depot, they are rising. In January Walmart announced pay increases which will raise its average hourly wage to more than $17.50. uBS, a bank, estimates that such moves will cost the company around $1bn a year. Home Depot said that it would spend an extra $1bn on higher hourly wages for workers. A bigger worry is the potential drop-off in consumer demand. The tailwind from strong household balance-sheets, fortified by pandemic-induced saving and government handouts, will not blow for ever. According to Goldman Sachs, another bank, households have spent a third of their excess savings and will have spent another third by the end of 2023. Firms that, like Home Depot and Walmart, were quick to flaunt their pricing power last year are now more careful about further price rises, lest this put shoppers off shopping. Last week Kraft Heinz, a food conglomerate, said it was mostly done raising prices this year. Even well-heeled consumers, who disproportionately drove retailers’ sales growth in 2022, are feeling the heat, as Walmart’s success with them shows. It is all too easy to imagine Mr McMillon’s discerning shoppers turning into dispirited ones. ■ More

Space station company Vast announced it has acquired fellow startup Launcher.
Vast was founded last year by Jed McCaleb, who made his fortune in cryptocurrency.
Vast aims to build human habitats with artificial gravity, a step more ambitious than the existing zero gravity environment of the International Space Station, or of other private stations underway.

The company’s first space tug, called Orbiter SN1, is seen undergoing final launch preparations.

Space station company Vast announced on Tuesday it has acquired fellow startup Launcher in a move that effectively triples the former’s headcount and expands its suite of tech and IP.
“Building a space station is this complex undertaking, and you need a lot of people to do it,” Vast founder and CEO Jed McCaleb told CNBC. “Just getting the engineers that Launcher has will accelerate [development].”

Vast aims to build human habitats with artificial gravity, a step more ambitious than the existing zero gravity environment of the International Space Station, or of other private stations underway. The Launcher acquisition adds about 80 employees to Vast’s existing staff of 40 and brings with it the company’s Orbiter satellite “space tug” and the E-2 liquid rocket engine that are currently in development.
“The technology that they built – a lot of it is directly applicable for what what we’re going to do, so we don’t have to go and develop it again from scratch,” McCaleb said.

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Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
“I can tell you that our investors and our team are happy; it’s a good outcome for both sides,” said Launcher founder Max Haot, who will join Vast as the company’s president.
Headquartered in Long Beach, California, at a 115,000-square-foot facility, Vast was stood up last year by McCaleb, who made his fortune in cryptocurrency. He’s worth about $2.5 billion according to Forbes. Before launching Vast, McCaleb first dipped into the space industry in 2021, joining the board of Firefly Aerospace after an investment through a non-profit he founded called the Astera Institute.

Founder and CEO Jed McCaleb
Vast Space

McCaleb and Haot first met last summer, and Haot spoke to McCaleb about the potential of investing in Launcher, he told CNBC. While Haot has built Launcher since 2017 “with less than $30 million of funding,” he said fundraising was “one of our biggest challenges” and the discussion with McCaleb quickly became centered around M&A.
“We now have far greater resources thanks to Jed,” Haot said.
Vast and Launcher signed the deal on Nov. 10, and the acquisition closed about a week ago.
The recent failure of Launcher’s first Orbiter mission, which achieved some objectives but was unable to deploy the multiple customer satellites onboard, “didn’t factor at all” in the acquisition process, Haot said.
The company expects to fly the next two Orbiter missions this year.
“Ultimately, our goal is a station which is bigger than what Orbiter is, but a lot of the same components and technology are what end up being flown on the station, so you kind of need this platform to test it on,” McCaleb said.

The International Space Station is pictured from SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Endeavour during a fly around on Nov. 8, 2021.

While Launcher was developing a small rocket called Light, which the E-2 engine was in testing for, Vast announced that the company will not continue work on the rocket. And, although McCaleb acknowledged the E-2 engine is not something his company would have developed on its own, he said Launcher has made “a ton of progress on that and it seems super valuable, so it’s not something we wanted to shut down.”
For now, McCaleb is the sole funder of Vast as he pursues a long-term goal of building space stations with artificial gravity.
“One of the advantages of having this be self-funded is that we’re not beholden – to not just economic cycles, but just the whims of investors in general,” McCaleb said.

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Starbucks is launching olive oil-infused coffee in Italy, with plans for a U.S. launch this spring.
The new “Oleato” line is the brainchild of CEO Howard Schultz, who is stepping down in April.
Schultz teased the release on the company’s earnings call earlier in February, calling it “alchemy” and a “game-changer.”

Starbucks initial Oleato launch will launch three olive oil-infused drinks in stores across Italy.
Source: Starbucks

Starbucks has a new way to customize its coffee: olive oil.
The coffee giant will launch its “Oleato” line in its roughly two dozen Italian locations on Wednesday and plans to bring it to Southern California this spring. The United Kingdom, Japan and the Middle East will follow later this year.

Oleato means “with oil,” according to Starbucks.
The idea was born from a trip that outgoing CEO Howard Schultz took to Italy this summer, where he witnessed Sicilians drinking olive oil as a daily ritual. He, too, began drinking olive oil alongside his daily coffee and decided that Starbucks should try to mix the two together.
Schultz teased the release on the company’s earnings call earlier in February, calling it “alchemy” and a “game-changer.”

Rich, luxurious, golden

The initial Oleato lineup of drinks will infuse olive oil into Starbucks’ Caffé Latte, Iced Shaken Espresso and cold foam. The Partanna olive oil is steamed with oat milk for the latte, shaken in the iced espresso drink and infused in vanilla sweet cream foam to create the “golden” foam that tops cold brews.
A press, or spoonful, of the Partanna olive oil will also be available to order as a way to customize drinks.

“It makes beverages richer,” Starbucks Chief Marketing Officer Brady Brewer told CNBC. “The word that a lot of people used is ‘luxurious.'”
One of the main ways that Starbucks customers choose to customize their coffee is by changing the texture, Brewer said. Cold foam, which the coffee chain launched in 2018, is one of the most-ordered modifiers as consumers shift to drinking more iced beverages.
Cold beverages accounted for more than three-quarters of drink orders in November. Iced espresso drinks, in particular, are Starbucks’ largest category by sales volume and its fastest-growing segment, which is why the company chose to include the Iced Shaken Espresso in the Oleato launch.
Oleato drinks could also appeal to health-conscious consumers, Brewer said. Studies have suggested that consuming olive oil can reduce inflammation and help heart health. Celebrities including Kourtney Kardashian have endorsed drinking it, while startups like Saint Supply are selling their own olive oil expressly for drinking, not cooking.

Schultz’s long goodbye

Consider the launch a parting gift from Schultz, whose third stint as head of the company comes to an end in April. Newcomer Laxman Narasimhan will succeed him after spending months at Starbucks learning the ins and outs of the business. Schultz told CNBC in September he’s “never coming back again” as chief executive.
“As I prepare to pass the mantle of leadership to Laxman and the rest of the Executive Leadership Team, it’s my deepest wish to share this moment of inspiration and love with you,” Schultz wrote in a letter to employees on Tuesday.
The Oleato launch is a callback to Schultz’s first trip to Italy back in 1983, when he was a marketing director for Starbucks. While there, he visited espresso bars and was inspired to try to bring the same culture back to the U.S. His bosses didn’t agree with the idea, so Schultz created his own coffee chain called Il Giornale and eventually bought Starbucks, merging the two chains and growing the company into the giant it is today.
There are echoes of Schultz’s last transition from the chief executive job.
In 2016, he drove the push to open Reserve Roasteries worldwide and stepped down to concentrate on that mission. The upscale coffee megastores were meant to help Starbucks compete with the likes of Intelligentsia Coffee and Blue Bottle Coffee. However, Schultz’s successor, Kevin Johnson, scaled back the initial ambitious plans to build several dozen Reserve Roasteries in favor of focusing on other priorities.

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The average cost of a wedding in 2023 is expected to be $29,000, up from $28,000 in 2022, according to wedding planning platform Zola.
While the 2022 wedding boom is now winding down, a survey of vendors found 77% are raising their prices this year because of inflation.
Catering and other services that are labor-intensive are seeing stiff increases, according to one wedding planner.

Thomas Barwick | Digitalvision | Getty Images

The explosive wedding boom seen last year is winding down, but the average cost of nuptials is still going up, according to new data from Zola. 
Couples will shell out an average of $29,000 this year to say “I do” – up from $28,000 last year, the digital wedding planning platform found. In 2019, before the Covid pandemic created a congested wedding market, that number was closer to $24,700.

The expected jump is in large part because of the rising, inflationary costs that vendors are facing, the company said. 
In a January survey of about 300 wedding vendors, 83% reported the cost to run their business will increase in 2023, 26% reported the cost of goods have gone up and 17% said couples have smaller budgets for services.
More than 77% of vendors surveyed said they raised rates for 2023.
Emma Dykstra, the office manager of family-run Deborah’s Specialty Cakes in Athens, Georgia, said supplier costs have in some cases “tripled or worse,” forcing her team to raise prices twice in the last year. 
“We’ve had to kind of adjust for that, and then also we want to make sure we pay our employees as well so we’ve had to up their hourly rates” said Dykstra, whose mom started the bakery. “That translates to slightly higher costs for the customer.” 

The bakery has had to raise prices by about a third or more, she said, which she says is leading more customers to shop elsewhere. Dykstra estimated that before costs jumped, one in 10 customers would take their business elsewhere because of pricing concerns — now she estimates it’s closer to one in five or one in six.
“We haven’t raised our price in ages and we hate having to do that because we really want to be as accessible to people as possible, but we’re definitely having to cater to a higher income clientele,” she said. 
Couples held more than 2.6 million weddings in the U.S. last year, according to Emily Forrest, Zola’s director of communications. That number is coming down in 2023 as backlogs related to the Covid pandemic start to clear. 
To mitigate rising costs, Forrest said she’s seeing more couples forgo typical traditions, shop on the secondhand market or even opt for a weekday or morning celebration.
“They’re really very eyes open about what the cost of a wedding is and what decisions they need to make that fit their personal style and fit the day that they’ve maybe been thinking about for a long time,” she said.
Paige Thom, co-founder and lead planner of Weddings by Leigh, a Las Vegas-based wedding planning service, said she isn’t seeing many couples cut their budgets but noted many are far more focused on the value of services than they were in the past. 
Thom said couples are increasingly asking questions like, “What services am I getting? How much time am I getting? What is really the best bang for the buck right now?”
“What am I getting for this and is it worth it?” 
Catering costs and other labor-intensive services are a particular pain point, Thom said, as vendors raise wages to support workers.
“Florals or installations or anything that’s really decor-heavy that requires extra labor on site, those costs are rising dramatically,” she said.
“Everyone’s kind of feeling the hurt — rent, groceries and gas — so if you’re trying to keep a team, just like we are, you’re giving raises,” she continued. “The idea of cheap labor isn’t really a thing anymore.”

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Walmart and Home Depot’s outlooks preview a tougher year for the retail industry.
The retail giants shared cautious full-year guidance that disappointed some investors.
Mall players, such as Macy’s and Nordstrom, may be in an even tougher spot.

If you want to know how this year may be for the retail industry, look no further than Walmart’s cautious outlook.
The discounter easily topped expectations for the holiday quarter on Tuesday, but it gave a weaker-than-expected outlook for the year ahead. Home Depot issued similar guidance. The home improvement retailer, which also reported fiscal fourth-quarter earnings Tuesday, said it is planning for flat same-store sales, as stubborn inflation and climbing interest rates cause consumers to watch their spending.

Home Depot’s shares slid Tuesday morning, while Walmart’s were effectively flat, as they foreshadowed the emerging theme: consumers are becoming harder to win over.
At Walmart, that means shoppers are buying more necessities like groceries and lightbulbs rather than big-ticket items or discretionary items like electronics and home decor. At Home Depot, it could mean customers may delay a home project or opt for cheaper floor tiles or kitchen appliances.
Home Depot Chief Financial Officer Richard McPhail said inflation is influencing customers’ decisions.
“We’ve seen an increasing degree of price sensitivity as the year’s gone on, which is actually sort of what we predicted in the face of persistent inflation,” McPhail told CNBC.
Walmart factored challenging dynamics into its full-year forecast, said John David Rainey, the company’s CFO. Those include the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes and consumers’ lower savings rates and shakier balance sheets.

“We find ourselves in a similar situation to one that we’ve been in for the last several years where there’s a lot of unknowns,” he said on a call with CNBC.

Walmart and Home Depot’s advantages

On an investor call, Rainey called food inflation “the most stubborn of all the categories.” He said that Walmart expects that shift away from higher-margin general merchandise goods and toward lower-margin categories like food ” to get a little bit worse” in the coming months.
Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said on an investor call, however, that the big-box retailer is in a fortunate spot, regardless of the economy. He said the business, which sells everything from toothpaste to furniture, is “naturally hedged.”
“If customers want more of something and less of something else we shift our inventory,” he said. “If the economy is strong, our customers have more money and that’s great. If things are tougher, they come to us for value.”
It has picked up customers across income levels – including those who make more than $100,000 — at Sam’s Club and at Walmart’s SuperCenters, he said. Nearly 60% of its annual revenue comes from grocery, a category that drives foot traffic and is recession-proof.
And, he said, as they shop at Walmart’s stores or try its curbside pickup or delivery services, the company hopes it will “result in them choosing us, even as inflation eventually subsides.”
Home Depot’s McPhail said the company’s customers are typically homeowners with stable jobs and healthier finances. Plus, he said, as mortgage rates rise, some are choosing to fix up their current homes rather than buy new ones.
Another dynamic that could work for Home Depot? It sells items that people may see as necessities, such as supplies to fix a broken water heater or a washer/dryer that a family may be forced to replace.
Other retailers are likely in a tougher position. Many mall players, such as Macy’s and Nordstrom, skew toward discretionary goods like apparel, handbags and shoes. Those two companies already warned investors about their holiday results. The companies are scheduled to report fourth-quarter earnings next week.

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