Econoday Report: Redbook June 2, 2009

Redbook

Released on 6/2/2009 8:55:00 AM For wk5/30, 2009

	Prior	Actual
Store Sales Y/Y change	-0.5 %	0.1 %

Highlights
Chain-store sales, helped by warm weather, improved a bit in the May 30 week but were still down a year-on-year 0.1 percent, according to Redbook's same-store sales tally. The key full-month reading against April is down 0.3 percent pointing to a third straight month of declines for Commerce Department data, a result that would make everyone reassess the economic outlook.

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