Retail sales fell 1.2% in September, a much larger drop than the 0.7% expected by economists. The numbers were released today by the Commerce Department in its "Advanced Monthly Sales for Retail Trade and Food Services" report. The drop refers to month-to-moth data. Comparing year-to-year data, retail sales were down 1% from September 2007.
Plummeting auto sales were a big factor in the decline. But even when those numbers are factored out, sales were still down 0.6%, three times the expected 0.2%.
According to Scott Hoyt, senior director of consumer economics at Moody's economy.com, the numbers indicate that consumers spent less on just about everything except essentials like fuel and healthcare.
The numbers make it pretty clear that as far as consumers are concerned, the recession is already here and getting worse.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-15-2008 @ 4:49PM
JDSalinger12 said...
This is not surprising. We all know we will continue to have a number of bad days with a few rebound days. Bottom line: the US markets are too unstable in the near future. Investors really need to make changes to their investing strategy if they have not already, especially since the market has not hit the bottom yet.. This means move money into T-bills and municipal bonds and invest some overseas to guard as a hedge against the coming inflation of the US dollar. I use offshore bank accounts for this and they have helped me. If you would like to learn more, feel free to visit my site.
Best,
Frank Miller
http://www.theoffshorebankaccount.com