Post by unlawflcombatnt on Feb 14, 2007 15:14:01 GMT -6
Retail Sales declined slightly for the month of January, despite the market's prediction of a 0.5% increase. The Census Bureau reported the Retail Sales change as 0.0%. However, January's seasonally-manipulated total of $370.418 billion was actually less than December's $370.447 billion. In addition, these values are in current dollars, not inflation-adjusted dollars. In current dollars, January 2007's increase was only 2.3% more than January 2006. With an annual CPI-measured inflation rate of 2.5%, this January's sales, measured in inflation-adjusted dollars, represents a -0.2% change over the previous January. In other words, January 2007 retail sales were less than January 2006's. The most recent changes can be seen in the table below from the Census Bureau. December and January totals are underlined in red.
These numbers can also be seen in their entirety from Table 1 at the Census Bureau's site.
It's also worth mentioning that once again, certain publications, such as Briefing.com, did not publish these "non-optimistic" results when they were first released at 8:30 AM EST, as they normally do. In fact, as of 1 PM EST, they still had not published the current results, even though they'd been available for over 4 hours.
It's always interesting to see how the market plays down negative economic news, and even covers tries to cover it up. Especially when the market's original "guess-timate" was much higher than the actual results. You gotta love such "fair & unbiased" reporting.
Even more interesting are today's comments by Ben Bernanke. In Bernanke's comments before the Senate Banking Committee he stated that "The resilience of consumer spending is all the more striking given the backdrop of the substantial correction in the housing market that became increasingly evident during the spring and summer of last year," . This is certainly in conflict with today's Retail Sales decline for January, and certainly in conflict with an annualized "real" consumer spending decline over last January of -0.2%.
What "resilience" is Bernanke referring to?
These numbers can also be seen in their entirety from Table 1 at the Census Bureau's site.
It's also worth mentioning that once again, certain publications, such as Briefing.com, did not publish these "non-optimistic" results when they were first released at 8:30 AM EST, as they normally do. In fact, as of 1 PM EST, they still had not published the current results, even though they'd been available for over 4 hours.
It's always interesting to see how the market plays down negative economic news, and even covers tries to cover it up. Especially when the market's original "guess-timate" was much higher than the actual results. You gotta love such "fair & unbiased" reporting.
Even more interesting are today's comments by Ben Bernanke. In Bernanke's comments before the Senate Banking Committee he stated that "The resilience of consumer spending is all the more striking given the backdrop of the substantial correction in the housing market that became increasingly evident during the spring and summer of last year," . This is certainly in conflict with today's Retail Sales decline for January, and certainly in conflict with an annualized "real" consumer spending decline over last January of -0.2%.
What "resilience" is Bernanke referring to?