Econoday Economic Report: Redbook February 12, 2013

2013 Economic Calendar

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Redbook

Released On 2/12/2013 8:55:00 AM For wk2/9, 2013

	Prior	Actual
Store Sales Y/Y change	1.5 %	2.4 %

Highlights
Chain-store sales were up in the February 9 week according to Redbook's same-store year-on-year sales index which rose to plus 2.4 percent, up nearly a full percentage point from the prior week for the strongest reading since late December. The report's month-to-month measure also shows a big start to February, up 1.1 percent month to date vs January. Tomorrow the government will post retail sales for January, a month where Redbook sees weakness vs December with a minus 0.6 percent reading that points to trouble for the government's ex-auto ex-gas reading.

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