July Seasonally Adjusted Retail Sales “Mixed Bag”; Manufacturing Output Rises Led by Auto Sector
by ilene - August 17th, 2010 5:26 pm
July Seasonally Adjusted Retail Sales "Mixed Bag"; Manufacturing Output Rises Led by Auto Sector
Courtesy of Mish
Excluding autos and gas retail sales ran out of steam in July 2010. Please consider the SpendingPulse Report July Retail Sales Show Mixed Results.
After several months of sales slowdown, total retail sales have stabilized somewhat, although overall growth has slowed sharply since earlier this year. In fact, growth in July headline numbers was driven largely by an increase in spending on gasoline, which is why the ex-auto ex-gasoline number is a better barometer to measuring the underlying health in retail spending.
July’s growth rate excluding auto and gasoline leaves the three-month average year-to-year growth rate of retail sales at 1.0%, well below the 3.5% for the prior three months. The ex-auto year-over-year numbers tell a similar story of a shallow and stabilizing trough, with the unadjusted three-month average year-over-year growth rate slowing to 1.6% compared to the 6.5% average growth rate for the previous three months.
The first table above compares June and July 2010 vs. the same month in 2009.
The second table shows July 201o vs. June 2010 seasonally adjusted. For an alleged recovery, these are weak numbers.
Industrial Production up 1 Percent, Led by Autos
Inquiring minds are taking a look at the July Federal Reserve Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization report.
Industrial production rose 1.0 percent in July after having edged down 0.1 percent in June, and manufacturing output moved up 1.1 percent in July after having fallen 0.5 percent in June. A large contributor to the jump in manufacturing output in July was an increase of nearly 10 percent in the production of motor vehicles and parts; even so, manufacturing production excluding motor vehicles and parts advanced 0.6 percent.
The production of consumer goods moved up 1.1 percent, as the output of consumer durables jumped 4.9 percent: Production for all of its major components advanced. In addition to a gain of 8.8 percent in the output of automotive products, which was mainly due to a large increase in light truck assemblies, the indexes for home electronics and for miscellaneous goods increased 1.3 and 1.5 percent, respectively; the index for appliances, furniture, and carpeting moved up 0.5 percent.
Among components of consumer nondurables, the output of non-energy nondurables declined 0.2 percent, and the output of consumer energy products moved up
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“Recession’s Over, Recovery Underway”: What’s Missing in Action
by ilene - July 29th, 2009 10:11 am
"Recession’s Over, Recovery Underway": What’s Missing in Action
Courtesy of Charles Hugh Smith, Of Two Minds
The mainstream media is gleefully hyping "the recession is over, the recovery is underway." Nice, except for everything that’s missing in action.
"The recession is over, the recovery is underway." Exactly what will be driving this fabulous "recovery"? Let’s check in on the usual forces which have powered previous recoveries:
1. Autos/vehicles: missing in action (MIA). Annual sales have plummeted from 17 million vehicles a year to about 9 million a year, and the U.S. probably contains about 30 million surplus/lightly used vehicles ( a number snagged from economist David Rosenberg’s latest report). Modern vehicles can easily last 15-20 year, so the "need" to replace vehicles is rather low. Actual "necessary" replacement might require as few as 5 million vehicles a year.
With unemployment at 16%, assets down by $10 trillion and the FIRE economy (finance, real estate and insurance) in disarray, where does anyone think the consumer borrowing firepower will come from to finance an extra 8 million vehicles a year?
2. Housing/real estate: missing in action (MIA). Let’s see: new home sales down from 1.4 million a year to 350,000 a year and the headlines are screaming "recovery in housing" even as house prices are down 50% from the bubble peak and still declining. The Case-Shiller index just came in at a year-over-year decline of 17% and the market is cheering because it’s a few tenths of a percent "better than expected."
The U.S. has 18.7 million vacant homes and even if you bulldoze a couple million in shrinking rust-belt cities we still have 16.7 million vacant dwellings, plus thousands more foolishly being constructed every year.
Furniture sales and auctions of old furniture are in the ditch; ditto draperies, carpeting, hardwood flooring, etc. etc., much of which is still manufactured in the U.S. No wonder the manufacturing sector is still contracting as well.
The bubble in commercial real estate has yet to pop but the needle is currently being inserted into the balloon. Too many malls, too many strip malls, too many office towers, too many CRE buildings everywhere.
3. FIRE economy: missing in action (MIA). Finance, real estate and insurance were the boomtown industries in the housing bubble. They’re diminished and will never come back; the consumer must save now to avoid a retirement in…
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW. She manages the site