tjx, which you might know as tj maxx or maybe marshals, where i got my first suit. i'm not kidding.e goods and a.j. wright, totaled 2,700 off-store retail stores in the u.s., canada and europe. tjx buys product for little and sells to the consumer and has done incredibly well during the recession. its same-store sales, an important metric in retail. it compares stores that have been open a year with how they did 12 months ago and were up 4% this past quarter. that sounds small, but most others are seeing negative retail sales, some down as much as 12%, 15%. tjx's inventories were down 4%. that's another sign of good management and strong execution. inventory is the nemesis of all retailers, because if you have too much that means you've got to throw all kinds of sales and other profit-recking deals to move your merchandise. tjx, loaded with cash. $1.5 billion on the balance sheet. nice buyback, $625 million. customer traffic's up. company even plans to open 25 more stores than it originally intended this year. not many retailers can say that. tjx has done a killer job with advertisi

tj maxx, marshals, terrible earnings. this stock probably gets in around $34 right now. >> pop here for agilent. >> they beat by 4 cents on the year earnings, got a great outlook. they actually can't keep up with demand right now. >> drop. >> an application was put on hold by the fda, but this is one we've been talking about for a while. went up to $9.60 a couple weeks ago. this is a lottery ticket worth owning. >> and this was up 5% along with the smartphone makers. >> palm pre looks excellent. no matter what the recession does, you're not giving up. that's your cell phone. >> all right. we've got to drop here for the zimbabwe dollar, also known as the zimba. i just named it the zimba. it is officially dead. the government has replaced it with the u.s. dollar, the south african rand in a record to curve record world inflation. it now costs 3 billion zimba to ride the bus there. >> every time i talked about the zimba -- >> what'd they replace it with? old glory. usa dollars. >>> coming up next, you can blame yesterday's s

consumers trade down from the high-end department stores to the tj maxx. . >> what's the big picture here? jane wells is describing, easy money, credit cards, christmas club, lay-away, that's pretty good. obviously, a lot of price discounting. what's the big picture here? will there be decent results? >> there will be better results in august. they still won't be very good, but definitely an improvement from what we have seen the last couple months. september is truly the month to watch, because retailers start facing comparisons to a year ago. and also the shift in labor day helps get august sales into september. and also by then teenagers have already returned to school, so they eye what their classmates are wearing and head to the mall to buy merchandise. >> are people in the stores -- one of the things i liked about cash for clunkers, at least people went into the auto dealer, at least they got out there and they were shopping, in a sense, kicking the tires, whatever. bought 700,000 cars. are people in the stores now? are they in the malls now? i'm sure you go out there and check

let's look at tj maxx, down $1.21, good news and bad news. second quarter earnings rose 31% thanks to strong sales and improving margins, but gave a forecast for the full year and the lower end came in well below wall street's limits. so that's keeping pressure on the stock. moving on to nova vac. stock is moving higher, up 43 cents, the company reporting positive preclinical results for its h1n1 or swine flu vaccine. keep in mind, not quite ready for humans, as the trial was performed on ferrets. according to the press release, they're the most appropriate model for evaluatingin influence ends adiseases, there is a wrinkle on your brain. the market selling $150 million in stock in what is called a mixed securities sales offering, from time to time the stock up 11.35. on the news, shareholders selling $66 million. the company plans to use the proceeds from its sale of stock to expand its operation. this is an resorts, among other things. >>> media unpressure, down 51 percent after the visual media firm reported a second quarter loss. and then

tj maxx sales rose as well. pending home sales up for the fifth month in a row. i'm michelle caruso cabrera, get all of your news on cnbc, celebrating its 20th year. >>> a good weekend to go back-to-school shopping. virginia entices pampbts with tax-free shopping. the state sales tax holiday began yesterday, runs through sunday. rginia's 5% sales tax will be waived on school supplies and up to clothes and shoes. and virginia is the only place to save on taxes. d.c. and maryland canceled their tax-free holidays this year. saying they can't afford to do it because of budget shortages. >>> the first family is doing something a lot of people do this time of year. going on a family vacation, they'll be heading west next week, visiting some notable natural landmarks, making stops at yellowstone national park and the grand canyon. white house spokesman robert gibbs said he hopes the trip encourages people to explore our national parks. and the president is expected to hold a few town hall-style meetings along the way. >>> we have sports and weather straight ahead, we'll

tj maxx profit increases 31%. are you sitting down? tjx company second quarter earnings rose 31% amid stronger sales and margins as the off-price retailer indicated it sees results ahead as they expand the stores and customers. more solid stores ahead. this is totally, totally wrong. 90% opposed on the conference call where management took down the good numbers and indicated tougher and more disappointing times ahead. in fact, other than lowe's and family dollar, the tjx call was the single most cautionary. if you listen to the most analyst-questioning, jaw-dropping call i was on. i would like to know the story about why that is. how could tjx do so well and the stock go down? tjx needs to have cheap merchandise that they buy and discount for other retailers desperate for cash. tjx is the chain talking about marshalls. the other retailers are doing well. hate to mention marshall's, you probably heard of it. the other retailers are doing so well, so little inventory, so much cash, they don't need to fire sale of tjx. they're worried the

but tjx companies, parents of the off-priced marshall's and tj maxx stores among the few bright spotstail area during the recession. is the worst of the recession over? we should get a better picture of how the economy's doing when the latest jobless claims numbers are released later this week. joining me live in the studio, reporter an anchor with forbes.com. is the worst of the recession over? >> the worst of the recession is over. when we look back at the first quarter of 2009, that is going to be considered the worst part of the recession. so we're out of that. don't expect a strong raefr even if we see the gdp crack into positive territory, that's only a small part of the economy. it is not the real economy. even looking at our last jobs report, jobs were a lot better than expected with around 250,000 job losses and unemployment ticked lower just slightly. that's good but that's still 250,000 job losses. until that number starts to recover we won't have a strong recovery. >> can you look at that again looking for silver lining anywhere you can, with jobless numbers not plummeting

however, there's tjx companies, parents are the off-priced marshall's and tj maxx stores are among the bright spots in the retail recession. >>> is the worst of the recession overall over? we should get a better picture of how the economy's doing with the latest jobless claims numbers are released later this week. joining me live here in studio, reporter an anchor with forbes.com. good morning to you. can we say good? do you think the worst of the recession is over? >> i don't know if we can say good yet but at least the worst of the recession is over. it is not time to celebrate. we're still losing jobs quite significantly. unemployment is at 9.5%. i mean that is still pretty severe. that's not a time when you'll see a v-shaped recovery of any sort any time soon. the consumer is under pressure and as long as the consumer is not spending, demand is weak and companies won't spend any money hiring any time soon. all other signs of the economy is rooe we are proving it will be a sluggish recovery but nonetheless a recovery. >> what about housing? we look at the housing starts. we shall ge

tj maxx which is the 800 pound gorilla. up 72% year to date and city trends and up 106%.row postal. the best picks in the space especially because of the betweens and teens are arrow postal, aro and bke. >> do you buy it out right? >> you do. i'm doing both. ahead of the earnings, these earnings are going to be august expirations. they are a week after next week. august 17th through 21st. those days i will be buying calls if i see unusual buying activity or if it's bad activity. i think we will get a positive pop. we have seen the numbers and same store sales all look good for those four. >> thanks for your time. let's talk about the home builders today. dr horton getting added to the conviction buy list. better than expected job numbers. brian kelly, do you go into the stocks that had been a trading vehicle not to go ago? >> i like the idea, but they are up so much right now. i just can't bring myself to get into them. on pull backs i am a buyer. if you look at the rail car loadings and you look at the stone loading, those are big numbers starting to turn up. i prefer to

>> yes, i am here to launch a campaign with tj maxx and save the children.ill donate a basic item to save the children. there're so many kids out there in the country that are not provided with basic need to go back to school. >> you are a mother of three? >> yes, and i know they need a lot of stuff. i am going to need a few of these bags. steve: is that your husband? gretchen: what a good looking couple. steve: we are going to get to the bottom of her marriage. (announcer) your doctor knows tylenol doesn't interfere with certain high blood pressure medicines the way aleve metimes can. that's one reason why doctors recommend tylenol more than any other brand of pain reliever. it sticks to your teeth so well... you can even drink water with it on. crest whitestrips advanced seal. get a dramatically whiter smile... while you do just about anything. satisfaction guaranteed. this is my verizon small business specialist, tom. now, i know the catering business but when i walked in here i wasn't sure what i needed. i'm not sure what i need. tom showed me how to use

but he's the guy who was behind, you know, the tj maxx retail store where everybody got their credityour pet issues. >> this drives me crazy. if you go to any of these stores, this is just more reason you should never, ever use your debt card when you go into these stores. use a credit card. stores try to push you to use the debit function because it doesn't cost them any money. they have to pay the credit card servicers t servicers have time it goes through. don't put your p.i.n. number is, the more places you intert it, the more it's floating around. >> amex fired some guy who had stolen a bunch of information from -- it must have been probably hundreds and hundreds of accounts. i haven't seen anything weird happen yet, but -- >> the difference between a credit card and debit card, credit card, the credit card will cover losses for any fraudulent. debit cards will usually do that, too, but you can sit without your money for months at a time before they get that wrapped up because that money comes straight out of your bank account. use your credit card, not your debit card, when you