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Friday, July 13, 2007

June Advance Retail

June's advance retail report kinda looks like consumers got their credit card bills from May. Most categories of spending were down from May.

Seasonally adjusted total retail & food services:
May: 377,287
June: 373,946
NSA figures:
May: 397,784
June: 381,702
On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, the only category which increased was hobby, music, sports. On an SA basis (including adjustments for holiday and trading-day differences), groceries, non-store retailer, hobby-music-sports, health and personal care, and restaurants-bars eked out gains, but motor vehicles-parts, gas stations, general merchandise, electronics, and clothing stores lost.

According to Table 1B, a YoY comparison of the first six months of sales in 2007 to the first six months of 2006 shows that gas sales increased 1.8% (less than inflation) and grocery stores increased 5.8% (less than inflation). Rough.

I'd feel better about all this if crude prices weren't rising so rapidly. Gas prices are now following crude up.

Taking consumer credit and retail sales reports since March, it looks like the pain is spreading. We've got a split in which the people who can spend are (confirmed by chain stores), but probably the bottom 60-65% of the population is in the inflation squeeze. It's all very 70's.

High DTI mortgages, including prime, FHA & MyCommunity, regardless of resets, are now dicey with these spending patterns.

A lot of Americans are going to have to learn to cook at home again!!!

Comments:
And it's about time they learn how to cook. It's getting really old to have to look for the real food at the grocery store. People do not realize how much money they throw away each month buying already prepared foods. We're not talking about convenience here, just laziness.
 
Well, I'm not going to criticize other people for their eating habits, but I sure do know what you mean. It does get old having to sort through all the plastic for some actual food to cook. ESPECIALLY in northeastern stores.
 
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