The retail market has several issues to get through before you can really say that there is a bottom forming. Availability of debt financing, resolution of the distressed inventory in the market, and underlying fundamentals for retail properties are a few things that come to mind. But markets usually rise and fall based on fundamentals. If the fundamentals are there, then all of the other factors will fall into place. If the lenders aren’t scared to death that they’ll lose their shirts, the debt will be there. And if fundamentals are improving the distressed inventory will be absorbed in a heartbeat. It seems like everything ripples back from the tenants.
So the rebound in retail sales is a relatively good sign. From Calculated Risk:
On a monthly basis, retail sales increased 1.6% from February to March (seasonally adjusted, after revisions), and sales were up 7.6% from March 2009 (easy comparison).
This graph shows retail sales since 1992. This is monthly retail sales, seasonally adjusted (total and ex-gasoline).
The red line shows retail sales ex-gasoline and shows the increase in final demand ex-gasoline has been sluggish.
Retail sales are up 8.3% from the bottom, but still off 4.4% from the peak.
a huge portion of that was also auto sales, which shouldve been stripped out as well. what i find troubling is that people have resumed spending after saving for 6 months. however, there is also some $8B in "disposable income' in the economy due to folks not paying their mortgages. im sure that has something to do with the growth recently.
Another problem with the above graph and stat is that the headline retail sales number is same-store sales. A post above demonstrates why the same-store sales number can be misleading in a recession like this: when some stores go bankrupt, the sales at the remaining stores in the sector will increase (e.g., Circuit city goes bust, Walmart and Best Buy pick up the slack).
The true statistic to follow for the best picture of retail sales is state sales tax receipts, which are still in the toilet.
Great comment.
abrade…
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