Global| Jun 19 2009Gains in Weekly Chain Store Sales Fade
by:Tom Moeller
|in:Economy in Brief
Summary
Commentary has been offered regularly on Haver.com about weekly chain store sales. That begs the question of how these figures differ from the monthly? The answer is that the weekly figures are based on a survey of sales taken by [...]
Commentary has been offered regularly on Haver.com about weekly chain store sales. That begs the question of how these figures differ from the monthly? The answer is that the weekly figures are based on a survey of sales taken by ICSC-Goldman Sachs while the monthly figures are based on reports directly from the retailers. And the tallies can differ. After the weekly figures are aggregated, during the last ten years there has been a not-perfect 73% correlation between the y/y change in the two series. Moreover, on a three-month basis that correlation shrinks to 14%. The one-month correlation is even smaller.
What the weekly figures indicate is that sales have lost their upward momentum. Weekly store sales declined in the latest period for the third week in the last five. The 0.6% decline lowered sales so far in June 0.5% below the May average after that month's 0.2% slip. Since the October '08 low, however, sales remained up by 2.3%. We'll have to wait and see whether these figures foreshadow a similar trend in the monthly report.
During the last ten years there has been a 69% correlation between the year-to-year growth in chain store sales and the growth in general merchandise sales. The weekly figures are available in Haver's SURVEYW database.The ICSC-Goldman Sachs 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.
Prospects for spending also seemed less than promising last week. Last week, the leading indicator of sales reversed all of the prior period's rise with a 0.7% decline. The decline lowered the indicator 0.4% from May and by 2.9% y/y.
| ICSC-UBS (SA, 1977=100) | 06/12/09 | 06/05/09 | Y/Y | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total Weekly Chain Store Sales | 485.6 | 488.6 | -1.5% | 1.4% | 2.8% | 3.3% |
Tom Moeller
AuthorMore in Author Profile »Prior to joining Haver Analytics in 2000, Mr. Moeller worked as the Economist at Chancellor Capital Management from 1985 to 1999. There, he developed comprehensive economic forecasts and interpreted economic data for equity and fixed income portfolio managers. Also at Chancellor, Mr. Moeller worked as an equity analyst and was responsible for researching and rating companies in the economically sensitive automobile and housing industries for investment in Chancellor’s equity portfolio. Prior to joining Chancellor, Mr. Moeller was an Economist at Citibank from 1979 to 1984. He also analyzed pricing behavior in the metals industry for the Council on Wage and Price Stability in Washington, D.C. In 1999, Mr. Moeller received the award for most accurate forecast from the Forecasters' Club of New York. From 1990 to 1992 he was President of the New York Association for Business Economists. Mr. Moeller earned an M.B.A. in Finance from Fordham University, where he graduated in 1987. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from George Washington University.
More Economy in Brief
