U.S. Retailers Report Strong Gains for March

[TomCADem]

Source: NY Times

The nation’s retailers reported their strongest monthly sales growth in a decade on Thursday, with robust gains in virtually every category of merchandise and every type of store.

The industry collectively posted a 9.1 percent sales increase at stores open at least a year, according to Thomson Reuters. That was the strongest result since the group began tracking the figures in 2000.

Analysts polled ahead of time by Thomson Reuters had lofty expectations for March, but the results released Thursday handily beat the 6.3 percent increase they had predicted.

“This really seems to herald the end of the consumer spending slowdown,” said Bill Dreher, senior research analyst at Deutsche Bank Securities. “Consumers across the entire spectrum are spending. It’s department stores, it’s discount stores, warehouse clubs — it’s in all subcategories in retailing, which is new.”

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/09/business/economy/09shop.html?ref=business

[Statistical]

1. The doom & gloomers will gnash their teeth at this one.

[Lost4words]

3. the Bright Siders will be all over this! nt

[MineralMan]

5. Is there a reason they shouldn't be?

[Lost4words]

2. I guess those with jobs are getting more relaxed and spending.

nt

[TomCADem]

9. Unemployment Is Never A Leading Economic Indicator

You generally need the economy to begin to grow before the unemployment rate begins to decline. This may be due in part to the fact that as the economy grows, folks who dropped out of the job market begin to look once again.

In the last two recessions unemployment was a lagging indicator peaking approximately 18 months after the recession officially ended. In the four recessions between 1970 and 1982 unemployment was a coincident indicator, starting to rise with the recession and pretty much peaking as the economy was just starting to recover.

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[Newest Reality]

4. The well-informed will be in here scrutinizing this relentlessly

[FailureToCommunicate]

7. (pssst: that's what we do here...)

...and welcome to DU, btw.

[kestrel91316]

6. Hmph. March was my worst month in years, and that's saying something these days.

[TomCADem]

11. The Economy Has Begun To Grow and Employment Has Improved Under The Democrats

First, I know someone will point to the current high unemployment rate to argue that the economy has not begun to turn around. However, unemployment is never a leading economic indicator. The employment rate typically improves on the tail end of the recovery from a recession, and the economy has reversed itself and begun to grow under President Obama:

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The best you can hope for is for the unemployment rate to start coming down as the economy begins to improve, though this has NOT happened in the last two recessions where unemployment lagged the overall improvement in the economy:

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Indeed, this trend appears to be holding true as the unemployment picture has dramatically reversed itself and improved under President Obama following the carnage of the Bush administration:

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Now, here is a very objective piece that notes the general effectiveness of President Obama's economic policies, particularly when one considers how deep of a hole we were in when he took office. The banking system was on the verge of collapse. The U.S. auto industry was in danger of cratering. If President Obama was a Republican, the mainstream media would be hailing him as an economic genius 24/7.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36322393/ns/business-businessweekcom/

It's never easy to separate politics from policy, and the past 18 months have only increased the degree of difficulty. The U.S. has been through a historic financial crisis followed by a historic election and a series of historic federal gambles — from bailing out AIG and GM to passing a $787 billion stimulus and a $940 billion health-care reform bill. All that risk has made policy more complicated and politics more fraught ("You lie," "Baby killer").

A Bloomberg national poll in March found that Americans, by an almost 2-to-1 margin, believe the economy has gotten worse rather than better during the past year. The Market begs to differ. While President Obama's overall job approval rating has fallen to a new low of 44 percent, according to a CBS News Poll, down five points from late March, the judgment of the financial indexes has turned resoundingly positive. The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index is up more than 74 percent from its recessionary low in March 2009. Corporate bonds have been rallying for a year. Commodity prices have surged. International currency markets have been bullish on the dollar for months, raising it by almost 10 percent since Nov. 25 against a basket of six major currencies. Housing prices have stabilized. Mortgage rates are low. "We've had a phenomenal run in asset classes across the board," says Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist for Miller Tabak + Co., an institutional trading firm in New York. "If Obama was a Republican, we would hear a never-ending drumbeat of news stories about markets voting in favor of the President."

Little more than a year ago, financial markets were in turmoil, major auto companies were on the verge of collapse and economists such as Paul Krugman were worried about the U.S. slumbering through a Japan-like Lost Decade. While no one would claim that all the pain is past or the danger gone, the economy is growing again, jumping to a 5.6 percent annualized growth rate in the fourth quarter of 2009 as businesses finally restocked their inventories. The consensus view now calls for 3 percent growth this year, significantly higher than the 2.1 percent estimate for 2010 that economists surveyed by Bloomberg News saw coming when Obama first moved into the Oval Office.

The U.S. manufacturing sector has expanded for eight straight months, the Business Roundtable's measure of CEO optimism reached its highest level since early 2006, and in March the economy added 162,000 jobs — more than it had during any month in the past three years. "There is more business confidence out there," says Boeing CEO Jim McNerney. "This Administration deserves significant credit."

[kestrel91316]

12. I know, I know. I just didn't have anything personally to crow about in March.

April is finally starting to show some signs of life, so let's hope the trend continues.

[RandomThoughts]

8. I think stories like that should have a different worded title.

A News Paper reports, that An Analysts polling data reports, that a Bank Securities researcher reported, that Retailers .....

Whats the story again?

On a side note, I watched a show on Nero, it was from BBC, and then I learned, all of the sources about him were second hand sources written by Roman elites of the era. But in truth, from history, we know very little about how Nero ruled. I thought about that awhile, after watching a show saying things that they can not know if he said, and knowing it was actually more spin on other topics.

But my point is I think much of the reporting we see is not far off of that.


If I had those think tanks, or analyst, they could do what many places do for inventory, count extra now then slump later, or count less now to inflate later.


So a few articles like that over a few weeks from many of the same groups from the same organizations, and everyone will think the consumer crunch is over.

Just like a few articles about decline, consitently over a few weeks, have the opposite effect.


I think its mostly silly.


unless its because maybe people got their income tax refund checks back. And they had some money to spend.

[Rozlee]

10. Do people even spend that much money for Easter that it would count as an economic indicator?

Except for a pretty pastel dress and a nice spring outfit for the kids--and of course, extra eggs, decorations, candy and baskets--my Easter spending came to about $120.00. Maybe because I only buy for so few people. Compared to Halloween, when I had to buy costumes, poison candy for the whole neighborhood brats, decorations, etc, that all came up to almost $300.00. Plus, other articles have said that the harsh winter kept a lot of people indoors and unable to go out shopping. So, I hope that this is a really good indication of recovery. Especially, since this last week, we've been spending like crazy on spring clothes and flowers, trees, veggies, plants, etc. for our garden and implements to use on them. Home Depot had to back order the lawn mower we wanted because they said it had sold fast this year. But, don't tell that to the Teabaggers. They're too busy dodging the pieces of the sky that are falling on them.