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Economy in Brief
U.S. Housing Affordability Declines Further in June
The NAR Fixed Rate Mortgage Housing Affordability Index fell 3.6% in June...
EMU Output Makes Solid Gain in June
The European Monetary Union posted a 0.7% increase for industrial output in June...
U.S. Producer Prices Fall During July; Core Increase Weakens
The Producer Price Index for Final Demand fell 0.5% during July...
U.S. Unemployment Claims Continue on an Uptrend
Initial claims for unemployment insurance filed in the week ended August 6 rose 14,000 to 262,000...
RICS Survey Points to More U.K. Housing Sector Weakness
The survey of housing market conditions in the U.K. continues to show strength in prices versus weakness...
Viewpoints
Commentaries are the opinions of the author and do not reflect the views of Haver Analytics.
by Tom Moeller May 24, 2005
Chain store sales slipped for the second week according to the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)-UBS survey. A 0.2% decline last week followed the 1.0% drop during the prior period. Sales so far in May remained 0.6% above April when sales rose 0.6% versus March.
During the last ten years there has been a 56% correlation between the y/y change in chain store sales and the change in non-auto retail sales less gasoline, as published by the US Census Department. Chain store sales correspond directly with roughly 14% of non-auto retail sales less gasoline.
The leading indicator of chain store sales from ICSC was unchanged w/w (0.1% y/y) and is up 0.4% in May versus April.
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) | 05/21/05 | 05/14/05 | Y/Y | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Total Weekly Chain Store Sales | 455.9 | 456.7 | 3.7% | 4.6% | 2.9% | 3.6% |