·
Chain store sales rose another 1.6% last
week and added to the 1.2% rise during the first full week of December,
according to the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)-UBS.
· The average of sales so far in December is 1.2% below November although strength during the last two weeks nearly recouped all of the declines of the prior two periods.
· Consumers' spending
budgets benefited from another decline in gasoline prices. Last week,
the average pump price for regular unleaded fell 3.2 cents to $1.815 per
gallon (+22.2% y/y). The U.S. Energy Information Administration
indicated that gas prices are down 10.8% from the peak in late October.
· The leading indicator of chain store sales from ICSC surged 1.2% in the latest period, the first gain in six weeks.
· 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.