Econoday Report: Redbook March 17, 2009

Redbook

Released on 3/17/2009 8:55:00 AM For wk3/14, 2009

	Prior	Actual
Store Sales Y/Y change	-1.4 %	-1.1 %

Highlights
Redbook reports an improvement in same-store sales during the March 14 week, down -1.1 percent year-on-year for a 3 tenth improvement from the prior week and the best result so far this year. The report attributed strength to warm weather in the week, somewhat of a surprise given that ICSC-Goldman's report issued earlier in the morning cited cold weather for what it sees as a downturn in the week. But rates for both reports, with ICSC-Goldman at -1.4 percent, are very similar with both pointing to slowing rates of contraction in what appears to be a bottoming out of the non-auto retail sector.

Definition
A weekly measure of sales at chain stores, discounters, and department stores. It is a less consistent indicator of retail sales than the weekly ICSC index. It is also calculated differently than other indicators. For instance, figures for the first week of the month are compared with the average for the entire previous month. When two weeks are available, then these are compared with the average for the previous month, and so on. It might be more useful to compare year-over-year figures since these are indeed compared to the comparable week a year ago. This index is correlated with the general merchandise portion of retail sales covering only about 10 percent of total retail sales. Why Investors Care