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Economy in Brief
U.S. New Home Sales and Prices Strengthen
Sales of new single-family homes during March increased 4.0% (8.8% y/y) to 694,000 (SAAR)...
U.S. FHFA House Price Index Continues to Strengthen
The FHFA index of U.S. house prices rose 0.6% during February...
U.S. Energy Prices Rise Further
Retail gasoline prices increased to $2.80 per gallon last week (14.3% y/y)...
Italian Confidence Backtracks But Remains High-Valued As It Is for France and Germany
From Q1 2008 to date, Italian GDP actually has failed to grow and has declined by 5.8%...
U.S. Existing Home Sales & Prices Rise Again
The NAR reported that sales of existing homes increased 1.1% during March (-1.2% y/y) to 5.600 million units (AR)...
by Tom Moeller July 12, 2005
Chain store sales inched 0.1% higher last week following a 0.5% rise during the opening week of July, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)-UBS survey. So far this month sales are 0.3% higher than the June average which fell 0.4% versus May.
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 rose 0.4% w/w (1.0% y/y) following no change during the week prior.
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.
Productivity and the Post-1990 U.S. Economy from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis can be found here.
| ICSC-UBS (SA, 1977=100) | 07/09/05 | 07/02/05 | Y/Y | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total Weekly Chain Store Sales | 455.7 | 455.2 | 3.9% | 4.6% | 2.9% | 3.6% |
