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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 August 14, 2007
The International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)-UBS survey indicated that chain store sales fell 0.9% last week, the third weekly decline in the last four periods.
The average level, thus, so far in August is up just 0.1% from July which rose 0.4% from the June level of sales.
During the last ten years there has been a 45% correlation between the y/y change in chain store sales and the change in non-auto 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 rose 0.5% (1.8% y/y).
The recent weakness in chain store sales came as gasoline prices for regular, on average, fell 2.4% last week to $2.77 per gallon (-7.6% y/y).
The average gas price so far in August is 5.4% lower than in July and prices have fallen 13.9% from their peak during May of $3.22 per gallon.
The market price for regular gasoline in N.Y. harbor fell yesterday to $1.99 (-0.9% y/y), but that was up slightly from the July average price of $1.96.
ICSC-UBS (SA, 1977=100) | 08/11/07 | 08/04/06 | Y/Y | 2006 |
---|---|---|---|---|
Total Weekly Chain Store Sales | 481.3 | 482.1 | 2.3% | 3.3% |