Posts Tagged ‘retail’
Wednesday, May 19th, 2021
Article source: ConstructConnect
In this, the latest mid-month Nuggets report, I’ll focus on three major and interlocking (or interdependent) economic indicators: retail sales, inflation and housing starts.
Retail Sales
My world of economic analysis is being rocked in unprecedented fashion. Maybe ‘shattered’ is the better word.
For example, I’m used to studying year-over-year percentage changes to gain an understanding of what is going on in certain segments of the economy. Retail sales is a perfect example. In current dollar terms (i.e., not adjusted for inflation), they used to range from flat as a lower boundary to maybe +7% y/y as an upper limit.
When the coronavirus first struck in the Spring of last year, retail sales plummeted, yielding double-digit percentage-change drops for ‘total’ and many shopkeeper sub-categories. Now, a year later, the rebound that’s underway is being vastly exaggerated by the comparison with 2020’s deeply distressed results. Looking at April 2021/April 2020, we’re dealing with ‘funhouse’ numbers on the upside.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, Economist, Economy, employment, Growth, Housing, inflation, job, jobs, Labor, retail
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Monday, August 20th, 2018
Article source: ConstructConnect
The U.S. quarter-to-quarter annualized advance in gross domestic product (GDP) in the second quarter of this year was an outsized +4.1%. It was the fastest leap forward since 2014’s third quarter jump of +4.9%. Some of the strength has been attributed to exports that were shipped early to beat target dates for the imposition of tariffs.
Nevertheless, it’s fair to say that America’s economy is presently firing smoother on more cylinders than it has in a long time. And even when problems do crop up, such as a potential Turkish currency crisis, they are – to all outward appearances − being dealt with and hustled aside quickly.
The foregoing is not to imply that there are no nagging points of concern. After all, inflation is shaking off its long slumber and preparing to possibly initiate trouble. The all-items Consumer Price Index (CPI) in July was +2.9% year over year. Even the ‘core’ rate (+2.4%), which omits volatile food and energy components, exceeded the +2.0% level favored by the Federal Reserve.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, construct, ConstructConnect, Construction, Economist, Economy, employment, Growth, Housing, oil, retail
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Tuesday, March 29th, 2016
Article source: CMDGroup
Obtaining a proper read on retail sales in the U.S. and Canada these days has been made harder by the sharp drop in gasoline prices, -20.7% year over year south of the border and -13.1% on the north side.
As a result, February’s cash register ‘take’ by gas station operators in the U.S. was -15.6% year over year, while in Canada, in January, it was -7.1%. (Retail sales data from Statistics Canada consistently lags results from the Census Bureau by a month.)
Therefore, U.S. retail sales in February that were +3.1% year over year in total including gas station billings, were a much better +4.8% without them.
Similarly in Canada, an already good jump in total retail sales in January of +6.8% improved to an outstanding +7.3% when sales at the pump were omitted.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, Canada, CMD, CMDGroup, job, market, motor, retail, sales, store, US
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