Highlights. Same store sales were up 3.6 percent year-on-year in the October 28 week, picking up by a tick the brisker 3 percent plus pace maintained in the weekly readings since mid-August.
Month-to-date sales versus the prior month were down 1.3 percent, the fourth negative week in a row, but the full month year-on-year sales gain edged up to a 3.5 percent rate, the strongest since September 30, though still 0.9 percentage points off the pace seen in the prior month, which was the strongest in more than two years.
The week’s data shows Redbook’s sample of retailers gradually regaining the momentum lost early in the month and points to respectable ex-auto ex-gas retail sales for October.
Definition
A weekly measure of comparable store sales at chain stores, discounters, and department stores. Redbook tracks week-to-week change, month-to-date change, and year-on-year change with the latter the most closely watched reading. The report offers early indications on ex-auto ex-gas retail sales.
Description
Consumer spending accounts for two-thirds of the economy, so if you know what consumers are up to, you’ll have a pretty good handle on where the economy is headed. Needless to say, that’s a big advantage for investors.
The pattern in consumer spending is often the foremost influence on stock and bond markets. For stocks, strong economic growth translates to healthy corporate profits and higher stock prices. For bonds, the focus is whether economic growth goes overboard and leads to inflation. Ideally, the economy walks that fine line between strong growth and excessive (inflationary) growth. This balance was achieved through much of the nineties. For this reason alone, investors in the stock and bond markets enjoyed huge gains during the bull market of the 1990s. Spending at major retail chains did slow down in tandem with the equity market in 2000 and during the 2001 recession. Sales weakened again in 2008 due to the credit crunch and recession.
The Redbook is one of the more timely indicators of consumer spending, since it is reported every week. It gets extra attention around the holiday season when retailers make most of their profits. It is also a useful indicator when special factors can cause economic activity to momentarily slide. For instance, it was widely watched in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita which hit New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in 2005 and again when Hurricanes Irene and Sandy hit the East Coast in 2011 and 2012.