Eurozone ghosts grip markets

FashionUnited Top 100 Index ended down yesterday at 1.257.7, after a final loss of 11.67 points.

Given the turmoiled environment in Western economies, it was not a surprise that the international fashion industry benchmark was led by Asian companies as Provogue India or Sanei International.

As pointed out by analysts, the spectre of eurozone contagion still looms large over the markets, but with November retail sales data rising to 1.1%, ahead of forecasts of 0.7%, investors seem happy to continue to believe that the Christmas season would bring them generous rewards this year.

With the economic backdrop steadily improving, albeit at a very slow pace, the outlook for the holiday shopping season has brightened. This recovery is specially noticeable in the US, where the key reasons for their strong performances appear to be their continuous efforts to offer innovative products and value pricing, rapidly respond to the buying habits of the consumers and strengthen loyalties despite price-motivated fickleness. In addition, some of these retailers started offering discounts and attractive deals far ahead of "Black Friday."

As released yesterday in the U.S. industrial production and capacity utilization report for Nov. released by the Federal Reserve, the output indexes for textile and product mills and for apparel and leather both moved lower than the manufacturing production increase of 0.3 percent in November.

For those willing to invest in affordable fashion, Ross Stores could be a good option as its shares fell 1.28% to $62.33. The 52-week range of the stock is $42.30-$66.58 and the stock jumped more than 46% year-to-date.The average daily volume of the stock is 1.56 million shares so, at current market price, the market capitalization of the company stands at $7.42 billion.

Finally, and related to the 5 worst performances of Thursday, it was a mix of European companies dragged by the Old Continent unease (Triumph dropped by 10.31% while French Connection shares traded lower), and Asian values mirroring the row materials surge.