UK’s grocery retailer Tesco was stealthy in its move into the US market - even building its new “Fresh and Easy Neighborhood Market” stores inside of warehouses, so that no one could see what they were up to.

“If anyone saw it asked what is this, we’d just tell them it’s a film set, and everyone would believe that in L.A. - it was entirely plausible,” Tesco Finance and Strategy Director Andrew Higginson told the Reuters Consumer and Retail Summit in London. “We were able to get away with it for quite a while.”

Tesco on track to open stores in November in four markets - San Diego, LA, Phoenix and Las Vegas, Higginson said.

Paul Hickey, co-founder of Bespoke Investment Group LLC, said he sees a buying opportunity in stocks despite rising bond yields. “We wouldn’t say this is a really great opportunity for bonds here,” he said at the Reuters Investment Outlook Summit.

Wall Street strategist Barry Ritholtz said the U.S. economy is in a gradual slowdown, and that jobs recovery is the worst since World War II. “I called this the slow-motion slowdown,” Ritholtz, chief market strategist at Ritholtz Research & Analytics, told the Reuters Investment Outlook 2007 summit. He said chief executives have been reluctant to make investments and have limited their hiring and purchasing.