Dollar do-over
Top CEO's retail rerun
Good morning, coupon clippers. This is your Stock Market Rundown for October 20th, 2023. Thanks for reading. Let’s dig in:
TODAY’S TOP STORY: DOOR BUSTER SPECIAL 💵
Your average CEO making his exit might get a gold watch as a retirement gift—and maybe a golden parachute in the form of a fat pension. But the former CEO of Dollar General got something even more satisfying: a panicked phone call a year after his retirement, begging him to come back.
Todd Vasos, who led the company from 2015 to 2022, took that midnight phone call and has returned to lead Dollar General “for the foreseeable future.” The stock popped on the news, proving that shareholders were glad to give the boot to departing CEO Jeff Owen. During Owen’s year-long tenure, the stock got sliced by half as profits slumped quarter after quarter.
Even worse, Dollar General got the reputation of being “the worst retail job in America” for its 170,000 employees, due to hazards from blocked fire exits to confrontations with shoplifters. Regulators slapped the retailer with over 100 citations for workplace safety violations.
These are rural workers toiling for minimum wage; they really don’t deserve to be crushed by a box of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup cans falling on their head.
Founded during the Great Depression, Dollar General went public in 1968 and has since become the biggest discount retailer in the US, with 19,000 locations. In many a podunk town in the flyover states, Dollar General is the sole grocery store.
Wall Street analysts warned that it won’t be an overnight turnaround as Dollar General tries to climb out of the scratch-and-dent bin. But things can’t get much worse when employees are so frustrated they’re running over shoplifters with their cars. That’s an extreme answer to shrinkage.
SO WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON?
Japanese clothing retailer Uniqlo forecasted double-digit profit growth for the year. Pro tip: if you shop here, size up—“medium” at Walmart is “large” at Uniqlo—unless you want your clothes to look like sausage casing.
Tough times at the vampire squid as Goldman Sachs reported profits that sagged on lower revenue in some trading divisions. Things are so rough, the CEO had to quit his side hustle as an EDM DJ to focus on the business. Guess this means no set at Coachella next summer.
Big banks have laid off thousands of employees so far this year, with more carnage en route. What’s worse: the indignity of being laid off in a group Zoom, or the bummer of driving 45 minutes to the office just to be ushered into a conference room and handed a box of Kleenex?
The president of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve said the Fed is done raising rates, adding: "By doing nothing, we are still doing something." That’s probably what he says to his wife when she wants him to clean out the gutters, and he wants to watch the Eagles game.
That’s it for the week, compadres. Have yourself a terrific weekend, and let’s circle back at the usual time Monday morning. Yours in capitalism, The Axe