Recent Updates
- UK: National Insurance Number Allocations (Q3), Capital Issuance, Motor Vehicle Production, Average Precipitation (Oct), BoE Balance Sheets (Nov)
- Russia: Nonresident Holdings of Government Debt (Oct)
- Belarus: New Hires and Terminations (Oct)
- more updates...
Economy in Brief
U.S. New Home Sales Almost Unchanged Since August
New single-family home sales around the country changed very little in October and also in September...
U.S. Q3 Growth GDP Unrevised at 33.1%; Corporate Profits Rebound
The second estimate of Q3 U.S. real GDP indicated that economic activity rose an unrevised 33.1% q/q...
U.S. Durable Goods Orders Rise Further in October
Manufacturers’ orders for durable goods increased 1.3% m/m (-0.3% y/y) in October...
U.S. Goods Trade Deficit Deepens During October
The advance estimate of the U.S. trade deficit in goods deepened to $80.29 billion during October...
U.S. Initial Jobless Claims Rise for a Second Week
Initial claims for regular state unemployment insurance rose again this past week ending November 21 to 778,000...
Viewpoints
Commentaries are the opinions of the author and do not reflect the views of Haver Analytics.
by Tom Moeller March 15, 2005
Chain store sales last week recovered all of the prior week's decline with a 0.6% increase according to the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)-UBS survey.
Sales so far in March are 1.1% ahead of the February average which rose 1.0% from January.
During the last ten years there has been a 59% 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.
The leading indicator of chain store sales from ICSC inched up 0.3% in the latest week (0.2% y/y). The indicator's February average rose 0.4% following a 0.6% January decline.
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.
| ICSC-UBS (SA, 1977=100) | 03/12/05 | 03/05/05 | Y/Y | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total Weekly Chain Store Sales | 453.6 | 450.8 | 3.4% | 4.6% | 2.9% | 3.6% |
