This holiday season will be a “bloodbath” for retailers, according to Marc Lichtenfeld. But there are still some companies that will dodge the downtrend. Marc says Kohl’s (NYSE:KSS), Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) and Dollar Tree (Nasdaq:DLTR) are well placed to weather the crisis. And they could even benefit from the demise of the competition.

Taipain Publishing’s Adam Lass says investors should be wary of luxury retailers that claim they will emerge unscathed from the current economic downturn.

Real incomes and real private spending are falling, inflation is ticking upwards and consumer confidence is in the gutter.

This makes Tiffany & Co. (NYSE:TIF) - with its overly optimistic earnings expectations for Christmas spending - ripe for shorting.

Bill Bonner says GDP numbers have been lying to us for years. During the growth boom of the last seven years, real median household incomes fell. People got poorer, even as GDP grew substantially. The latest GDP data is also misleading: It signals that this economic crisis is over.

Luxury brands are having finding the going tough under the current economic conditions in the U.S., says Jennifer Yousfi in Money Morning. And the slowdown in Europe is putting further pressure on the sector. Here Jennifer recommends two luxury brands that are likely to weather the global downturn…

When U.S. Department of Energy analysts told you more than a month ago that gasoline prices would peak at about $4 a gallon around Memorial Day, we told you they were wrong. Gas prices, we said, were destined to head much, much higher.

For years, certain advisors have touted the “buy-and-hold” strategy as the pathway to optimal investment returns. While it’s true that short-term gyrations can lead to temporary investment setbacks, any resulting losses can be overcome, since stocks always rise over the long haul.