Neubarth
At the Ballpark July 30th
Retail Sales will be reported on Thursday morning.
Retail sales in America's stores are not a totally accurate indicator of the economy. They are subject to large revisions, and failure to report issues, so the accuracy is suspect. What you can do is look at a three month trend and see where it is going.
Our current three month trend is DOWN as are all the other economic indicators.
Here are the last three months.
________Retail Sales / Retail Sales excluding auto sales.
February 2009.... +0.3 / +1.0
March 2009......... -1.3 / -1.2
April 2009........... -0.4 / -0.5
As you can see the three month trend is DOWN. We are effectively in a Depression and things are not getting better.
The price of gasoline is skyrocketing again, and that skews the numbers considerably. To get a more accurate picture, you need to look at retail sales Ex-Gasoline. They don't do it that way, but gasoline alone can royally screw up the numbers. In February when gas started increasing in value, the index was raised from negative numbers like April's into positive sale range. People were not buying more at Sears, but they were paying more to drive there.
Keep in mind that Retail Sales only look at a small portion of the economy. The largest amount of money is spent on services (Shady Hills Rest Home, Pizza, McDonalds, Physical Fitness centers, .... In hard times, Grandma comes home from Shady Hills and sleeps in the small back bedroom, and people buy less pizzas. For some reason Depressions do not really hurt McD's)
Retail sales in America's stores are not a totally accurate indicator of the economy. They are subject to large revisions, and failure to report issues, so the accuracy is suspect. What you can do is look at a three month trend and see where it is going.
Our current three month trend is DOWN as are all the other economic indicators.
Here are the last three months.
________Retail Sales / Retail Sales excluding auto sales.
February 2009.... +0.3 / +1.0
March 2009......... -1.3 / -1.2
April 2009........... -0.4 / -0.5
As you can see the three month trend is DOWN. We are effectively in a Depression and things are not getting better.
The price of gasoline is skyrocketing again, and that skews the numbers considerably. To get a more accurate picture, you need to look at retail sales Ex-Gasoline. They don't do it that way, but gasoline alone can royally screw up the numbers. In February when gas started increasing in value, the index was raised from negative numbers like April's into positive sale range. People were not buying more at Sears, but they were paying more to drive there.
Keep in mind that Retail Sales only look at a small portion of the economy. The largest amount of money is spent on services (Shady Hills Rest Home, Pizza, McDonalds, Physical Fitness centers, .... In hard times, Grandma comes home from Shady Hills and sleeps in the small back bedroom, and people buy less pizzas. For some reason Depressions do not really hurt McD's)
