One Wall Street economist put it this way: “Here comes the consumer.”
He was reacting to the Census Bureau’s announcement that US retail sales had unexpectedly jumped 0.8 percent in July. The experts had anticipated an increase of just half that much.
Guess what? The July gain in retail sales was a fluke — a favorable statistical bounce that was like that ball squirting through Bill Buckner’s legs in the ’86 World Series. The Mets victory still looked good in the record books, but the fun was in the details.
You have to get deep into the July retail sales details to really understand what happened. And once you see the lucky bounce, you’ll realize that the consumer is going nowhere.
I realize that analyzing economic data to weed out the nonsense may be getting a little tedious — for me as well as for you. But with so much at stake in this election year it has to be done.
And I promise that I will write an off-the-wall column sometime in the near future to make up for your patience.
So what about the July retail sales figure?
Well, for the first time in the last decade of Julys the seasonal adjustments contributed growth to the retail sales figure. In fact, $1.941 billion worth of the July sales of $403.93 billion came from nothing more than this adjustment.
Let me say it again: for the first time since 2001, the seasonal adjustment program — called X-12 ARIMA (or AutoRegressive Integrated Moving Average) contributed to retail sale growth rather than detracted from it.
I’ve already told you that I thought the last employment report from the Labor Department was hokey because it suddenly added jobs to the count that might not exist. In the case of retail sales, I think the data is less hokey and more lucky for the Obama administration.
Why did X-12 ARIMA bounce favorably for the White House this July? Because there weren’t enough Saturdays in the month, according to ARIMA experts at Census.
Saturdays are the best shopping day of the week. And because there were only four Saturdays in July 2012 instead of five, the seasonal adjustment program added sales to make up for the Saturday shortage.
Yep, that’s why the consumer is back: if there had been that one more Saturday, the Census Bureau’s computers are certain people would have jammed stores and caused an 0.8 percent growth in retail sales.
ARIMA will also help sales figures in September, the last report before the election. The October sales report — which should also be helped by the seasonal adjustment — won’t come out until a week after the election.
The difference between the July report and the upcoming reports is this: the September and October figures are always helped by the adjustments for the season. And if you didn’t hear me the first and second times I mentioned it: this is the first time the adjustment has bounced July’s figure higher since 2001.
So if you want to make Wall Street feel better, please go out and buy something. I know, higher gasoline prices are using up all your spare dough. But Wall Street will really be happy when consumers cooperate again.
Please, see what you can do.
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The Federal Reserve is concerned about defaults of municipal bonds. And it thinks the number of defaults is far greater than people think.
In a nutshell, a recent report from the New York Fed says there have been 2,521 municipal bond defaults and not the 47 reported by Moody’s or the 71 by Standard & Poor’s.
Moody’s and S&P’s numbers are smaller, the NY Fed says, because the two ratings services only follow the higher-quality muni bonds, which of course default less frequently.
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Sadly, Sears isn’t the only company that has tried to cheat me over the years.
This is the third installment of a series I call “Swindled by Sears,” which cheated me out of $150. It’s meant to teach you how to stand up for yourself when companies push you around.
Back in the ’90s, my red convertible and a Greyhound bus had a delicate collision at the Lincoln Tunnel merge. The bus driver and I acted like gentlemen, giving each other information until — days later — he denied the accident ever occurred.
Huh! So, the driver was saying that I was trying to commit insurance fraud by putting in a claim. (Remember that, it’s important later.)
A lawyer friend told me what to do — file a suit in Small Claims Court. You see, any company by law needs to hire an attorney to represent it in New York Small Claims Court. A regular person can represent himself.
My lawyer friend suggested I ask for as many delays as possible, since their lawyer was on the clock.
After two delays, I was ready to go — until I realized the lawyer had a painful leg injury and could barely make it into court. Since I was trying to teach him a lesson, I asked for another adjournment.
Greyhound hadn’t produced all its documents, I argued.
The fourth trip to court was the key. The Greyhound attorney finally gave me all the documents he should have at the beginning of the so-called “discovery” period. And, whaddayaknow, the driver had sketched a picture of his bus hitting my car.
The judge almost held the attorney in contempt of court, which probably has never happened in Small Claims.
And I filed a million-dollar suit charging Greyhound with defamation.
I didn’t get any money, because I missed a filing date. But I bet the bus company won’t ever pull something like that again — at least not against me.