When it gets hot, people buy fans - or at least that's what John Lewis experienced last week.
The company - which reported a 2.3& overall fall in department stores sales due to the weather and the distraction of Andy Murray trying to win Wimbledon - did see some benefits from the heat. It said:
"The foundation of [a good result in electrical products] lay in customers' urgent demand for air-cooling equipment of all types and is best captured by the fact that we sold more fans last week than in the whole of 2008."
Analysts at Singer Capital Markets extrapolated the John Lewis result to other retailers. They said:
"This anecdote should be seen as a significant positive indicator for Kingfisher (B&Q) and Home Retail (Homebase), which both Wintered substantial surplus cooling inventory after last Summer's dire weather."
Indeed, Home Retail is now 5.5p higher at 272p and Kingfisher has climbed 3p to 189.5p.
An increase in John Lewis' online sales should also give a lift to Asos, Singer believed. It said:
"Johnlewis.com sales were ahead by 35%, meaning sales since the start of June were up about 24%. This compares to the month of May, when sales were up just 8%. This pick up in online activity should be viewed as a positive indicator for Asos (buy, target price 425p) which has weakened recently after management indicated that May was a soft month for online fashion sales, but where we expect to see growth rates pick back up again."
So far, however, this idea has not caught on. Asos is currently down 8p at 340.5p.
