Core Retail Sales
Last week, I mentioned Retail Sales ex-Auto and Gasoline were pretty poor.
Looks like the Atlanta Fed is now also reporting what they Core Retail Sales — ex autos, energy and construction.
They noted: June retail sales increased 0.7% from May, slightly higher than analysts’ expectations of 0.4%. However, retail sales excluding autos increased below an expected 0.5% gain to 0.3% in June (See chart).
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Source: U.S. Census Bureau
·Total retail sales exceeded market expectations in June. This was the second consecutive monthly increase, but sales are still down 9.0% from a year earlier.
· On a year-over-year basis, the decline in retail sales excluding autos continued to accelerate, falling to -7.9%.
· Consumers continue to be very conservative in their spending, as demonstrated by May’s personal savings rate, which climbed to 6.9%, the highest rate in almost 16 years.
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Although retail sales posted a gain in June, gasoline stations were responsible for more than half of the increase. The auto and gasoline stations sales increase was likely the result of rising prices. (See chart).
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Source: U.S. Census Bureau
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Source:
Consumer Spending
Economic Highlights—July 15, 2009
http://www.frbatlanta.org/EH_invoke.cfm?objectid=60E864C1-5056-9F12-12ADD19D362B0090&method=display_body
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July 20th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
Note the resilience of motor vehicle parts dealers. Local body shop owner says buisness is good- folks are fixing up their cars rather than buy new. Anecdotal evidence tells me people who fix things are recession-proof. My grandfather was a cobbler- he never missed a day of work during the GD.
July 20th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
@Deflator Mouse
Good points…Ii’s kind of like that from where I stand as well…
Since these are M-O-M numbers, I’m interested to see in coming months (when and if oil prices come down), if the decrease in gasoline sales end up in higher numbers elsewhere, OR, if the savings at the pump go towards savings and/or paying down debt…
It would be interesting to revisit the same graphic in a couple of months time…
July 20th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Considering the Consumer Price Index (http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cpi.pdf) had a seasonally adjusted jump in gas prices of 17.3% from May to June it’s not terribly surprising to see gas stations reap the benefits
July 20th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Household incomes are slightly down over the past ten years (adj. for inflation). Why do the retailers assume that year-to-year sales will increase? Listening to them and the MSM one would think that an ever-increasing retail sales figure is some inexorable law of physics.
That is, unless the retailers and MSM assume that households will borrow an ever-increasing amount of money to make up for the difference between what they make and what they spend. What is the likelihood that will continue?
Thank God retail sales are reverting to the mean.
July 20th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
“it’s not terribly surprising to see gas stations reap the benefits”
I don’t know if I’d put it that way. Their margins are very thin so just because total sales due to gas prices went up I doesn’t mean they reap much. And their high margin stuff that they sell inside (chips, soda, etc.) usually suffers when gas goes up. And I can’t imagine that those sales haven’t suffered much lately anyway, though I haven’t seen any stats on it. But I would imagine that plenty more folks are buying their chips and soda at Wal Mart vs. the convenience store.
July 20th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
Marcus
They are truly and surely delusional, no doubt. But then so is most of the world these days. Denial is strong.
July 20th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Sales will go up as the school year begins for many in early August. So don’t be suprised to see retail numbers look less gloomy. However, X-mas 2009 is going to be a bloodbath. X-mas 2008 put Linens n’ things, Gottchalks, and Mervyn’s out of business. This X-mas mor liqudations. Lookout Sears.
July 20th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
if you take away cars (gas/parts etc) you end up barely any increase at all.
July 20th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Question – I can understand the reasoning behind removing gas from the overall numbers. But is removing auto something that is normally done when looking at retail sales?
July 20th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
@Thor
As our kind blog host has pointed out many times, any number ex-anything is “normally done” if it makes the final value more palatable.
My guess about auto sales is that, as far as retail, it depends upon a relatively smaller number of relatively more expensive items (say, compared to Wal-Mart sales) that the #s can get pushed around by extrinsic factors- e.g., rebate offers, price of gas, new model introductions, etc. But I like my first explanation better.
July 20th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
With the loss of jobs, furloughs, shorter workweek, etc plus increased savings then retail sales HAVE to be down. People are cutting their own hair for chrissake!
July 20th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
he;;, I have a bad tooth, one more viewing of “Cast Away” and then I out it myself!
July 20th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
@jc
I guess dentists aren’t recession-proof.
July 21st, 2009 at 4:17 pm
[...] Schon mal was von Core Retail Sales gehört? Diese gibt es. Sie werden “ex autos, energy and construction” von der Atlanta Fed berechnet. Ähnlich wie die core inflation rate (Kerninflationsrate) sind die Kerneinzelhandelsumsätze weniger volatil (The Big Picture). [...]
July 25th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
[...] A closer look at last week’s retail sales numbers: http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/07/core-retail-sales/ Credit spreads continue to shrink (that’s good [...]