Recent Updates

  • US: Consumer Sentiment (Aug-prelim), Import/Export Prices (Jul)
  • US: Consumer Sentiment Detail (Aug-prelim)
  • US: Vehicle Miles Driven by State (Jun)
  • Bulgaria: Agricultural PPI (Q2) Central Bank Survey (Jul)
  • Blue Chip: Blue Chip Economic Indicators (Aug)
  • more updates...

Economy in Brief

Chain Store Sales Rebound, Strong
by Tom Moeller August 7, 2007

Chain store sales last week rebounded a strong 1.1% after the 0.2% decline during the prior week, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)-UBS.

The rise pulled sales for all of July up 0.4% from June, modest because of many declines during the last eight weeks.

During the last ten years there has been a 45% correlation between the y/y change in chain store sales and the change in nonauto retail sales less gasoline.

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.

The leading indicator of chain store sales from ICSC-UBS fell 0.7% (+0.2% y/y) last week and gave back much of a 1.2% rise during the prior week.

Evaluating the Relative Strength of the U.S. Capital Markets from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York is available here.

ICSC-UBS (SA, 1977=100) 07/28/07 07/21/07 Y/Y 2006 2005 2004
Total Weekly Chain Store Sales 486.5 481.3 3.2% 3.3% 3.6% 4.7%
close
large image