Comments on: January Shopping Surprise http://www.recessionwire.com/2009/02/12/january-shopping-surprise/ The upside of the downturn Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:31:20 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: drew http://www.recessionwire.com/2009/02/12/january-shopping-surprise/comment-page-1/#comment-175 drew Thu, 12 Feb 2009 21:31:34 +0000 http://www.recessionwire.com/?p=1569#comment-175 Before we get ahead of ourselves, let's take a quick look at the "not seasonally adjusted" sales numbers... I am typically not a big fan of seasonal adjustment factors and tend to agree more with year-over-year comparisons (i.e. Jan '09 vs. Jan '08). And right now, I trust those seasonal adjustment factors even less because those factors are based on recent economic trending. I think we can all agree that recent years are trending nothing like the upside-down economy we are in right now. So without further commentary here are the last eight months of year-over-year growth rates in Retail Sales (ex. auto): Jun: 1.3% Jul: 3.2% Aug: -1.1% Sep: -0.2% Oct: -4.8% Nov: -11.3% Dec: -9.4% Jan: -10.5% From the looks of things, there really was no rebound in retail. I don't think the "for me" shopping and "firesales" gave us the boost that mainstream media is reporting. Before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s take a quick look at the “not seasonally adjusted” sales numbers…

I am typically not a big fan of seasonal adjustment factors and tend to agree more with year-over-year comparisons (i.e. Jan ‘09 vs. Jan ‘08). And right now, I trust those seasonal adjustment factors even less because those factors are based on recent economic trending. I think we can all agree that recent years are trending nothing like the upside-down economy we are in right now.

So without further commentary here are the last eight months of year-over-year growth rates in Retail Sales (ex. auto):

Jun: 1.3%
Jul: 3.2%
Aug: -1.1%
Sep: -0.2%
Oct: -4.8%
Nov: -11.3%
Dec: -9.4%
Jan: -10.5%

From the looks of things, there really was no rebound in retail. I don’t think the “for me” shopping and “firesales” gave us the boost that mainstream media is reporting.

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