{"id":371,"date":"2010-03-12T11:51:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-12T16:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.intuitiveinvestor.com\/web\/?p=371"},"modified":"2018-08-21T08:59:16","modified_gmt":"2018-08-21T12:59:16","slug":"pale-sales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/2010\/03\/12\/pale-sales\/","title":{"rendered":"Pale sales"},"content":{"rendered":"

This morning U.S. retail sales figures for the month of February were published by the Commerce Department.\u00a0 The data show that sales were up 0.3% vs. an expected decline of 0.3%.\u00a0 Interestingly, January’s retail sales figures, originally reported as being up 0.5%, were revised to only being up 0.1%.<\/span><\/p>\n

Analysis:<\/strong> Certainly a rise in retail sales is a good sign.\u00a0 However, a 0.3% rise represents an increase in retail sales of 30 cents on a $100.00 purchase.\u00a0 Nothing to write home about, in my opinion.\u00a0 Not only that, but retail sales in January were first reported as up 0.5%, only to be revised back down to up 0.1%.\u00a0 In other words, the retail sales data is statistically insignificant, either up or down.\u00a0 That means that the U.S. economy remains in a holding pattern.<\/span><\/p>\n

The\u00a0staring contest\u00a0taking place between businesses and consumers continues.\u00a0 Will U.S. consumers “blink” first by spending like it’s 2007 and thus\u00a0overcome their unemployment fears?\u00a0 Or will businesses hire like it’s 2007, thus overcoming their fear of a lack of revenue support from U.S. consumers?\u00a0 At this juncture it is very hard to see through the fog to the other side.<\/span><\/p>\n

The figure that I continue to feel haunts the U.S. economic situation right now is that huge 18% drop in consumer confidence in February.\u00a0 That 18% drop is a full 60x greater than the increase in retail sales of 0.3%.\u00a0 What is missing data-wise is whether or not that huge drop in consumer confidence will translate into a huge drop in consumer spending.\u00a0 My intuitive sense is that the U.S. consumer is feeling better about things right now.\u00a0 Is there any data to support an improved U.S. consumer mood?<\/span><\/p>\n

First of all, warmer, sunnier\u00a0weather is on its way.\u00a0 Don’t laugh.\u00a0 This is<\/em> a big deal.\u00a0 Last year the financial markets tanked in March and I insisted that the sell off was over done.\u00a0 A portion of my process was recognition that winter was almost over.\u00a0 Having lived in the eastern U.S. for several years, it is very hard to feel good about life when there are layoffs, economic downturns, financial market collapses and horrible weather.\u00a0 Winter being almost over is a big deal right now.<\/span><\/p>\n

Second of all, the Toyota debacle had to be impactful on consumer confidence.\u00a0 Toyota was that scion of quality and customer satisfaction.\u00a0 This served as a “shock” to U.S. consumers.\u00a0 But now that shock is accounted for in the consumer disposition.<\/span><\/p>\n

Third, while the unemployment situation is treading water, it is not<\/strong> getting worse.\u00a0 That means that the huge shock of layoffs is most likely behind us.\u00a0 U.S. businesses are running as lean as they can.\u00a0 So again, the removal of a negative stimulus on the U.S. consumer organism is a positive.<\/span><\/p>\n

Net, these factors mean that there should be a pre-disposition in U.S. consumers to start feeling better about things.\u00a0 So sans any more shocks to the system, ala Toyota, the U.S. consumer should start spending again.\u00a0 However, this logic has yet to be born out by the numbers.\u00a0 But my intuitive sense is that folks are starting to feel better.\u00a0 I will be on the watch for data that either does not support, or does support this belief.<\/span><\/p>\n

Importance grade:<\/strong> 6; it’s nice that retail sales are up more than expected.\u00a0 However, a sales improvement of 30 cents on $100.00 is not significantly different from statistical error in my opinion.<\/span><\/p>\n

Have a great weekend!<\/span><\/p>\n

Jason<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This morning U.S. retail sales figures for the month of February were published by the Commerce Department.\u00a0 The data show that sales were up 0.3% vs. an expected decline of 0.3%.\u00a0 Interestingly, January’s retail sales figures, originally reported as being up 0.5%, were revised to only being up 0.1%. Analysis: Certainly a rise in retail […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}