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.