From the Census Bureau:
The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for June, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $360.2 billion, a decrease of 0.5 percent (±0.5%)* from the previous month, but 4.8 percent (±0.7%) above June 2009. Total sales for the April through June 2010 period were up 6.8 percent (±0.3%) from the same period a year ago. The April to May 2010 percent change was revised from -1.2 percent (±0.5%) to -1.1 percent (±0.2%).
Here is a chart of the last year of data from the St. Louis Federal Reserve:
That is not the most inspiring data trend. In corresponds to the results of the latest Bloomberg poll:
More than half say they are responding to the economic climate by hunkering down. Fewer than a quarter say they are getting back to normal and only 16 percent are seeing opportunity and taking risks. The public’s posture is more pessimistic than the view of global investors polled a month earlier. In a poll of Bloomberg customers conducted June 2-3, more than twice as many respondents -- 35 percent -- said they are seeing opportunities and taking risks.
3 comments:
The jobless report looked a bit more positive.
According to Ambrose Evans-Pritchard :
The euro rocketed to a two-month high of $1.29 and sterling jumped two cents to almost $1.54 after the Fed confessed that the US economy may not recover for five or six years. Far from winding down emergency stimulus, the bank may need a fresh blast of bond purchases or quantitative easing.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/currency/7893238/Feds-volte-face-sends-the-dollar-tumbling.html
That + the ECRI + the recent plunge in bond yields make me think that the double dip theory has legs. The last time the ECRI went negative 6 months before the start of the recession which would put the next recession in 2011.
NDd, what's your opinion on the double dip ? We've had plenty of new "all time lows" since the last time you touched this subject. You could make an update tomorrow when the weekly LEI comes out :)
A sign of an upturn in Michigan:
Detroit Metro Airport has marked its first increase in monthly passenger traffic in nearly two years.
May 2010 passenger counts bested May 2009 numbers by 3.1%, the first time since July 2008 that a count was better than the same month during the previous year.
One month does not a recovery make, but it's better than continuing to drop.
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