CNN details the horrific results:
Calculated Risk, in their Retail Sales Collapse in December post provide this chart -- now that's cliff diving."Holiday sales posted the biggest decline on record falling around 3.5%," wrote Anika Khan, an economist for Wachovia. "Sales have been primarily driven by extensive discounting which is hurting retail profit margins."
Some of the decline in sales can be attributed to falling prices. The figures are not adjusted for price changes, but they are adjusted for seasonal variations. Economists believe consumer prices fell 0.8% in December; U.S. inflation data will be released on Friday.
Retail sales last month were down a record 9.8% compared with December 2007, the Commerce Department's data showed. Sales excluding autos fell a record 6.7% in the past year.
And Econompicdata provides a sector breakdown chart of December '08 vs. December '07 (not seasoanlly adjusted).
Update: The Financial Ninja adds this figure on retail and food services sales -- after nearly 20 years of steady growth, what a huge drop
Update (Jan 16, 2009): Econompic Data has this chart of CHinese exports
No comments:
Post a Comment