I was looking at the Retail Sales being off by .6 percent and decided to dive into the numbers a bit. It is true that Retail Sales are off by .6 percent from January to February but if you go from year to year the 2 month sales are actually up 5.8% and if you put Auto Sales in there they are up 7.4%.
From this time last year the only patches of retail spending that are actually down year to year are cars and car parts, furniture, building materials and garden supplies, and department stores. You can chalk furniture and building materials to the housing slowdown. While on the other hand some stuff is up quite a bit. Grocery Stores are up 7.7%. Health and Personal Care stores are up 6.3%, sporting goods/hobby/books/music stores are up 8.2%.
While Gas Stations are up a whopping 25% year to year they actually dropped from January 08 to February 08. Could this mean that high gas prices are starting the crimp demand? Too bad there isn't an advanced look at March numbers because I really want to see if gas station sales start to drop off or not due to the even higher gasoline prices.
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