President Trump went to war Wednesday with Nordstrom, the department store, over its decision to stop carrying his daughter Ivanka’s line of branded apparel. And it appears Nordstrom won, with the company’s stock up almost 5 percent on the day.
Nordstrom’s shares up nearly 5 percent after clash with Donald Trump
Sad!
In today's battle of Trump vs @Nordstrom, Nordstrom is the overwhelming winner: shares up nearly 5% at the closing bell 🏆 pic.twitter.com/hne3FFpv8j
— Joshua Green (@JoshuaGreen) February 8, 2017
The saga began way back on February 2, when a spokesperson for Nordstrom rather blandly confirmed to Racked that Ivanka’s clothing was disappearing from stores: “Based on the brand’s performance, we’ve decided not to buy it for this season.”
The president ignored this issue for almost an entire week. Then Wednesday morning, according to the White House’s official schedule, he received his daily intelligence briefing at 10:30 am. There clearly wasn’t much urgent national security business to transact, because by 10:51 am he was focused on the threat to his daughter’s brand licensing business.
My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person -- always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 8, 2017
Shortly thereafter, your hard-earned tax dollars went to work pursuing the first family’s vendetta against a retailer that scorned them, with the staff-run @POTUS account retweeting the president and White House press secretary Sean Spicer continuing the charge at the daily press briefing.
Nordstrom’s move, according to Spicer, was not a business decision based on the sales of Ivanka’s line at all. It was, rather, a “direct attack” on Trump administration policy in a manner that is “not acceptable.”
Sean Spicer on Nordstrom re: POTUS and Ivanka: "This is a direct attack on his policies and her name."
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) February 8, 2017
Trump has previously depressed the stock prices of private companies by tweeting negative things about them in a manner that perhaps suggested forthcoming retaliation on the part of the federal government. But most companies have found their share prices bouncing back rapidly. In Nordstrom’s case, the dip lasted less than an hour, and over the course of the day, shares surged.
That may be a total coincidence, or it may be that investors are anticipating a surge of new sales at the retailer thanks to the massive amount of free publicity Trump garnered for their store, or the way that doing battle with an unpopular president could boost its profile in the large metropolitan areas where most of its stores are located.
In a possibly related development, T.J. Maxx also announced today that it is dropping Ivanka’s line, but no presidential tweets on this yet.
See More:
