ICSC-Goldman Store Sales

Why Investor's Care
Consumer spending accounts for more than 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 ICSC-Goldman index is one of the most 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. The ICSC-Goldman Sachs store sales series previously was known as ICSC-UBS before Goldman Sach's involvement with ICSC. The name change took place with the September 30, 2008 release.

Released on 5/5/2009 7:45:00 AM For wk5/2, 2009
Previous Actual
Store Sales - W/W change -0.7 % 0.7 %
Store Sales - Y/Y -1.7 % -0.8 %


Highlights
ICSC-Goldman said hot weather boosted same-store chain store sales by 0.7 percent in the May 2 week though the year-on-year rate remains negative at -0.8 percent. Redbook is up next.

Definition
This weekly measure of comparable store sales at major retail chains, published by the International Council of Shopping Centers, is related to the general merchandise portion of retail sales. It accounts for roughly 10 percent of total retail sales.