·
Chain store sales surged 2.7% during
Christmas week on top of two weeks of strong gain, according to the
International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)-UBS survey. During
the last three weeks chain store sales jumped 5.7%. That gain edged out
the previous three week high for the series since its inception in 1989.
· Despite these gains, average of sales so far in December is 0.1% below the prior month due to two huge w/w sales declines the end of November.
· Consumers' spending budgets benefited from another decline in gasoline prices which, for regular unleaded, fell 2.4 cents w/w to $1.791 per gallon (+21.2% y/y). For December, gasoline prices are 7.0% below November.
· The latest Short Term Energy Outlook from the US Department of Energy is available here.
· The leading indicator of chain store sales from ICSC edged up slightly in the latest period (+0.9% y/y).
· The ICSC-UBS retail chain-store sales index is constructed using the same-store sales (stores open for one year) reported by 78 stores of seven retailers: Dayton Hudson, Federated, Kmart, May, J.C. Penney, Sears and Wal-Mart.
· During the last ten years there has been a 60% correlation between y/y change in chain store sales and the change in non-auto retail sales less gasoline, as published by the US Census Department.