you should be out buying stuff instead of stocks...
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dailynews.yahoo.com
Retail Sales Drop as Consumers Waver
Tue Oct 8, 5:04 PM ET
By Pedro Nicolaci da Costa
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. consumers curtailed spending in September, crimping sales growth at the nation's chain stores and knocking an already anemic economic recovery further off course.
A brief rebound in the last week of September proved too small to compensate for the month's lackluster overall performance, as consumers -- worried about their jobs and personal finances -- tightened their purse strings.
Instinet said its Redbook Average of chain store sales slipped 0.7 percent in September -- a five-week month in the retail calendar -- compared with August.
Sales rose 0.8 percent in the week ended Oct. 8, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi and UBS Warburg said in a report, reversing the previous week's 0.8 percent decline, but not the deeper 1.7 percent drop in the preceding week.
"When you're hearing from stores like Wal-Mart for two months in a row saying that sales came in at the low end of their expectations, that's telling you something," said Ram Bhagavatula, chief economist at Royal Bank of Scotland Financial Markets. "The economy is in a tough spot."
Consumer spending accounts for two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, so analysts tend to scour the retail data for signs of the economy's health.
The prognosis is not exactly stellar, said analysts, partly because this year's steep stock market losses are pinching consumers in their pocketbooks.
"That is going to filter through their spending decisions," Bhagavatula said. "I don't see any compelling reason why spending is going to come bouncing back."
Among U.S. retailers that have already reported their results, things looked bleak. Charming Shoppes Inc. , the largest U.S. women's plus-size retailer, said sales at its stores open at least a year fell 6 percent in September.
Most other retailers are expected to report monthly sales on Thursday, and will likely reveal at best modest sales growth for September after a mid-month swoon erased a solid start. Even mighty discount giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc. may be forced to scale back expectations, analysts said.
IMPACT OF WEST COAST PORTS DISPUTE
Thursday's sales reports are expected to allow retail experts to gauge how the West Coast dockers' labor dispute, which has closed ports since Sept. 29, may affect sales in October and, more importantly, the crucial holiday season.
President Bush (news - web sites) on Tuesday said he will seek a court order to end the lockout, marking the first time in 24 years that a president has invoked the 1947 Taft-Harley labor act.
Shipments have been diverted to other ports to fill store shelves in time for the holidays, while some retailers have resorted to shipping goods by air, Redbook said.
September was supposed to be a strong month for retailers because the September 2001 attacks on the United States drove shoppers away, making for easy comparisons. The month started out on plan with a busy Labor Day weekend but stalled by mid-month as mall traffic slowed around the Sept. 11 anniversary.
"We're expecting very, very modest, below-plan numbers from pretty much everyone across the board," said Jeff Klinefelter, retail analyst at U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray.
The Bank-of-Tokyo Mitsubishi and UBS Warburg Weekly Chain Store Sales Snapshot is compiled from seven major discount, department and chain stores across the country that report their weekly results.
The Redbook Retail Sales Average, released weekly by Instinet Research, is a sales-weighted average of annual growth in same-store sales at discount, department and chain stores. |
