Phil Wahba

Normally double-digit sales declines don't cheer investors.

But shares of jewelry chain Tiffany & Co rose 4 percent on Wednesday even though it reported that sales at its U.S. stores open for at least a year ("same-store-sales" in industry parlance) fell 10 percent in the third quarter. 

True, much of the hemorrhaging seems to have subsided since last year's gruesome holiday fourth quarter when U.S. same-store sales fell 33 percent, and November is off to a promising start.

Seems that wealthy Asians and Europeans -- in Asia outside Japan, overall sales rose 18 percent while European sales were up 10.5 percent in the quarter -- are picking up the slack from rich Americans who seem to be curbing their shopping until the Dow Jones Index is more to their liking... like say 14,000. And analysts were encouraged that the jeweler is aggressively expanding overseas.

Tiffany is so bullish on China in particular that it is planning to triple the number of its stores on the mainland within 5 years. Outside China, the chain is also expanding. It is opening a second store at London's Heathrow Airport next month and has opened new stores in Amsterdam, a Melbourne suburb, Toronto and Hong Kong this year.

While the affluent U.S. baubles buyer will eventually return, Tiffany is playing it smart by leveraging its strong brand and international footprint to get through the storm, analysts told Reuters.

(PHOTO: Reuters)

Heaps of turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce will induce a collective food coma on Thanksgiving, sending a majority Americans to their beds for a much-needed nap, if one is to believe a survey released on Thursday by coffee and doughnut chain Dunkin' Donuts.

About 58 percent of the 500 Americans Dunkin' Donuts surveyed this week predicted they would succumb to sleep during the holiday next week, according to the chain. Overeating will do that to you.

Unsurprisingly, more men than women are expected to nap, and the number of people jealous of those napping will overwhelmingly be women. But perhaps the fellas, exhausted from carving the turkey, just need to rest before settling in for all that football watching.

Helpfully, Dunkin' Donuts stores will be open until 2:00pm on Thanksgiving, selling coffee to caffeinate the masses, and maybe keep some of the guys out of the doghouse during the year's biggest holiday.

(PHOTO: Reuters)

Who says people have to dress frumpy or dowdy in a recession?

Apparently not Chico's FAS.  The mature women's chain, which operates Chico's, White House/Black Market and Soma Intimates chains, has made major strides in making its merchandise more fashionable in the past year, and has been rewarded with stellar results in the third quarter and shares that are up eightfold in the last year.

The move towards trendier-- dare we say, sexier -- clothes helped sales this autumn  rise 13.3 percent and allowed the chain to win market share while rivals such as Talbots and Clearwater Coldwater Creek continued to struggle. (A year and a half ago, U.S. gold medalist Michael Phelps' mother Debbie boasted that her Olympics' wardrobe at the Beijing Games came from Chico's.)

Chico's took advantage of Vogue editor Anna Wintour's glamorous "Fashion Night Out" this fall to open a store in Manhattan's SoHo district. And last year, the chain won national attention in 2008 when First Lady Michelle Obama wore a dress from a White House/Black Market store during on an appearance on the talk show "The View."

The firm is apparently not done with its makeover: it is planning to open about 40 new locations of its lingerie chain Soma Intimates in 2010 and offer more risqué items,  Chief Executive Officer David Dyer hinted on a call to analysts on Wednesday.

"We're making great strides in our merchandise assortment for Soma, not only through our Soma touch and Soma solutions, but we're also adding a layer of sensual, sexy merchandise that will infuse emotion and excitement back in the brand," Dyer said.

But he left what, exactly, those new sexy products are to our imagination.

(PHOTO: Michael Phelps and his mother Debbie in Los Angeles July 15, 2009. REUTERS/Danny Moloshok )

Reuters will be providing live updates on Thursday at noon ET from bankruptcy court in Phoenix for the auction of the National Hockey League's Coyotes. Canadian billionaire James Balsillie and NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman are expected to take the stand.

GM cleared several of the hurdles on its way out of bankruptcy Thursday at a court hearing in Manhattan. The federal bankruptcy judge gave GM the final ok to tap the rest of its $33.3 billion bankruptcy financing and a lawyer for asbestos claimants withdrew a request for official committee status. Other obstacles including the status of non-union retirees rights to healthcare benefit-- are on the agenda for the afternoon. We'll be filing updates from the hearing in the live headline box below and on our Twitter feed.

New York and a handful of other major U.S. cities are down, but will never be out as far as their commercial real estate goes, a leading New York real estate private equity investor said Monday at the Reuters Global Real Estate Summit.

"New York's not going away- it's THE global city."

Second tier cities are another matter entirely, said Thomas Shapiro, president of GoldenTree InSite Partners. "We are a big believer in the big city theory which is that the bigger cities will continue do better, to the detriment of secondary cities."

Companies always go to where the best talent is, he explained, meaning cities such as his big five-- New York, LA, San Francisco, Boston and Chicago-- remain magnets, their status self-perpetuating

"Goldman Sachs is not moving to Miami because the intellectual capital is in New York- ditto Boston, ditto San Francisco, ditto LA."

Here's Shapiro's prognosis for how some other U.S. cities will fare as the real estate market recovers:

San Francisco: one of the top markets, Shapiro said, because "San Francisco has a diversified economy."
Chicago: "It's a boom and bust town, but it is an important center."

But other, lower cost cities are cheap for a reason, Shapiro said:
Detroit: "It's cheap but I will never be convinced it's cheap enough- we have so many issues in the auto sector."
New Orleans: "People always pitch New Orleans, 'gee you can buy a fantastic building for $60 per square-foot, but $60 can still go to $30."

(Reuters photo)

If you had paid $3.5 billion for a skyscraper named after bankrupt automaker General Motors, wouldn't you want a tenant to come in and pay you another few million to rename the building, with the added bonus of giving it a name not associated with a failed recipient of government largesse?

Boston Properties, which bought the building last year, located at the southeast corner of Central Park in Manhattan, is not known to be shopping around the naming rights to the building, but a top real estate broker in Manhattan, known as the "Queen of the Skyscraper" has one suggestion if ever it is : Apple.

The GM Building is home to Apple's sleek flagship store, well known to the hordes of tourists and New Yorkers alike, and the maker of the iPhone enjoys top brand name recognition and public affection that Apple is a logical choice.

"If I were Steve Jobs I would be negotiating now," said Darcy Stacom, the CB Richard Ellis broker who handled the transaction. (She hastened to add she has no knowledge of whether Apple is or might be interested.)

What's more, she said, the building is home to CBS News' national daily broadcast, so a massive audience hearing, "Live from the Apple building in New York..." every day would be a major coup for the retailer.

The naming rights to such a marquee building can be cost millions (they are not typically sold outright, but built into rents.) Then again, few companies, Apple among them, can afford that luxury in this market. And even if, as Stacom says, it takes a while for New York to get used to a new name, they may be eager to forget GM.

(Reuters photos)

Talk about guerrilla marketing. A tuneful guitarist named Joe was strumming songs for the Times Square throngs on 42nd Street in New York earlier this week, his case open for donations.

Rather than the usual sign inviting people to leave money if they like what they hear, Joe's case had a bright white sign in the shape of a guitar suggesting people spend their change on breakfast at Dunkin' Donuts instead.

"Sure you want to throw that change in here? 99 (cents) could get you breakfast at Dunkin' Donuts," the caption read. "Breakfast NOT Brokefast," it continued.

Fear not for our starving musician, advertising for a coffee chain competing for his busking dollars. Joe told Reuters that Dunkin' Donuts had paid him a modest fee to place the ad and recruited him through Craigslist.

A Dunkin' Donuts spokesman told Reuters the company had hired a total of 12 musicians in New York City for the campaign, but declined to say how much Joe and the other tunesmiths were paid.

Joe disappeared before we could snap a photo of him, but let's hope he made enough money for his own breakfast that morning.

(Reuters photo)
(Updates with information form Dunkin' Donuts)

Tiffany & Co has no intention of selling garden furniture and risking brand dilution, steering clear of the product mix of bankrupt rival jeweler Fortunoff , CEO Michael Kowalski hinted this week at the Reuters Global Luxury Summit in New York.

Fortunoff filed for bankruptcy in February in part because of dismal holiday sales in 2008 and the high expense of expanding into Lord & Taylor stores, and was bought by liquidators, marking the end of an 87-year iconic presence in the New York area during which it was known for its jewelry and home furnishing.  It had been bought by Lord & Taylor's owner NRDC Equity Partners, in March 2008 for $100 million.

Asked if Fortunoff's demise offered his company any lessons, Kowalski declined to address Fortunoff directly but said it would be better for Tiffany to continue to concentrate on what it is known for.

 "We are relatively focused on jewelry and watches, " Kowalski.  "We look at ourselves as a jeweler not a lifestyle brand."

In other words, don't expect Tiffany-branded deck chairs any time soon.

(UPDATES TO INCLUDE MORE DETAIL ON ITS BANKRUPTCY, AND TO REFLECT IT HAD BEEN SELLING HOUSEWARES FOR MANY YEARS.)

Jim Balsillie, the co-CEO of BlackBerry maker Research In Motion desperately wants a National Hockey League franchise and relocate it to his native Southern Ontario.

Balsillie has tried twice in recent years to buy a hockey team, only to be blocked by NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, who this week assured people there was nothing personal between him and Balsillie. Balsillie is currently locked in a court battle with the NHL in his efforts to move the bankrupt Phoenix Coyotes to Hamilton.

On Monday, Balsillie sent in his application to the NHL explaining why the Phoenix Coyotes should move to Hamilton, Ontario and why he'd make a good owner. Late Tuesday, he supplemented that with 22 letters of recommendation from a variety of mostly Canadian VIPs.

Still, with friends like these, maybe Bettman will be swayed this time. Here are some excerpts:

From Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty , congratulating Balsillie on May 21 for receiving a Public Policy Forum Testimonial Award: "Take pride in knowing that you are playing a pivotal role in advancing the discourse that is so vital to the health of a democratic society."
Fellow Premier, Brad Wall of Saskatchewan, also sent him a written note on April 4 to congratulate him on the honor.

From Isadore Sharp, CEO of Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts: "Congratulations on this distinguished honour" in reference to receiving Order of the Business Hall of Fame in Canada.

From WIlliam Swanson, CEO of Raytheon: "Your presentation helped us better understand the importance of driving innovation through leadership."

From former U.S. Ambassador to Canada David Wilkins: "Please know how much your friendship (those two words underlined by hand by Wilkins) has meant to me these past few years."

Others providing heart-warming testimonials for Balsillie: the member of the Canadian Parliament for Kitchener-Waterloo, where RIM is based, Ontario's Minister of Economic Development and Trade, the Elton John AIDS Foundation for a $48,305gift, and the Lance Armstrong Foundation for the free BlackBerry Curves.

But curiously, no letter praised Balsillie for his gumption for trying to buy a hockey team that filed for bankruptcy without even telling the NHL first and going through the courts, rather than the usual channels, to make his case.

(PHOTO: Reuters/Fred Thornhill, Sept. 2008 at charity hockey game in Toronto.)