Today is the 11^th anniversary of the grand opening of the first Starbucks (SBUX) store in Korea.  To commemorate the occasion, Starbucks has staged events at stores around the world throughout the month to keep Starbucks in the news, and in the minds of Starbucks customers around the world.

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The International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) said last week that American consumers will spend $38.4 billion on back-to-school merchandise in 2010, which would be a record high.  But never to be outdone in consuming optimism, the National Retail Federation (NRF) called that prediction, and raised it to $55.12 billion.  The NRF's annual Back-to-School Consumer Intentions Survey predicted that the average American family will spend $606.40 to prepare their children for a return to the classroom this year, which would be a generous budget allowance for a consuming population that has needed multiple government rebate bribes to motivate them to open their wallets this year.

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Two Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) store closings happened this month, not because of failed expectations, but because of pest infestation. An Abercrombie store in Manhattan and an Epic Hollister in SoHo were invaded by bedbugs and were closed for business while they got rid of the pesky little bloodsuckers.  Reportedly, CEO Mike Jeffries wrote a letter to Mayor Michael Bloomberg blaming the city of New York for their pest problem.  Although bedbugs in commercial spaces are not unheard of in New York City, it's questionable whether these particular bugs had a 212 area code before they wandered past the scantily clad greeter guys into the Abercrombie and Hollister stores.

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Much has been reported about the drugstore wars between Walgreens (WAG) and CVS (CVS).  The clash of the pharmacy titans seemingly ended when both companies realized that their game of prescription chicken was doomed to end in disaster if they both didn't put the brakes on their very public dispute.  The recent cease-fire agreement between the two companies appears to guarantee that the rivals will peacefully co-exist for several years and consumers have come out as the winners in the deal.

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Not surprisingly, U.S. retail industry stocks have been on a down trend, due more to recovery euphoria fantasy self-correction than any particular government data or industry reports.  The S&P Retail Index has declined more than 7% and the S&P 500 has declined more than 3% in the past ten days.  JC Penney (JCP) has beaten them both with a 15.3% decline, which put the JC Penney stock at the losing end of retail stock declines, and at a 52-week low at the close of Wall Street on Friday.  The JC Penney brand makeover is in mid-transition and Wall Street's game of make-as-much-as-you-can-as-quick-as-you-can generally has no patience for transitions.

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