West Coast ports could shut down in 5 to 10 days by Karma Allen at CNBC. "Traffic at nearly 30 West Coast ports is on the verge of "complete gridlock" and shipping officials have threatened to stop paying dockworkers if a contract deal is not reached soon." Read more / See the video   ...New contract proposal is offered to West Coast dockworkers by Andrew Khouri at LA Times. "McKenna said employers offered a contract with fully paid healthcare and wages that would increase about 3% each year. The maximum pension would rise to $88,800 per year, McKenna said. [...]

  Costco comp sales flat in Jan., misses Street's view at Yahoo Finance. "Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters predicted a 1.2 percent rise in sales at stores open at least a year." Read more   ...Comp sales +7% excluding gasoline price deflation and foreign exchange. Read the release   Target will eventually take a second crack at Canada by Thomas Lee at San Francisco Chronicle. "If Target can’t succeed in Canada, where else in the world can the retailer expand? Abu Dhabi?...But Wall Street won’t ease up on Target for long, and it will force Cornell to show growth. That’s [...]

  Wal-Mart, Walgreens & Target accused of selling adulterated ‘herbals’ by Sarah Kaplan at Washington Post. "Wal-Mart was the worst offender: None of its six supplements that were tested were found to contain purely the ingredient they advertised. Target’s supplements were the least misleading of the lot — though that isn’t saying much, since tests on six of the brand’s products resulted in only one unqualified positive. Two of Target’s other supplements contained DNA from other plants alongside their purported ingredients, while the remaining three tested negative." Read more   ...Retailer Response by Anahad O'Connor at NY Times. "Walgreens said [...]

  Target Hackers Hit Third Parking Service at Krebs on Security. "Book2Park.com, an online parking reservation service for airports across the United States, appears to be the latest victim of the hacker gang that stole more than a 100 million credit and debit cards from Target and Home Depot. Book2park.com is the third online parking service since December 2014 to fall victim to this cybercriminal group." Read more   Amazon Makes a Push on College Campuses by Greg Bensinger at WSJ. "Amazon has struck deals with three large universities to operate co-branded websites selling textbooks, fan shirts, ramen noodles and [...]