VCR News and Press, Vanguard Consumer Discretion From 10/28/20

This 5% decline in consumer spending intentions for the holidays is in stark contrast to the 4% increase that the National Retail Federation found a year ago in its October 2019 survey. If consumer spending intentions on gifts translate into some sort of reality, total retail spending...

With the release of September Retail Sales and the Consumer Price Index, we've updated this commentary to include the latest Real Retail Sales. Month-over-month nominal sales in September increased by 1.91%. Real Retail Sales, calculated with the seasonally adjusted Consumer Price...

Retail sales and food-services spending posted a strong gain in September. The September gain was the fifth in a row. Core retail sales, which exclude motor vehicles and gasoline retailers, posted a 1.5 percent gain for the month. Unit vehicle sales, reported earlier in the mo...

Industrial production has a 100-year-plus record of measuring the production side of the economy. Similarly, retail sales have a 70-year-plus record of measuring the consumption side of the economy. In September, both surprised, as production failed to confirm leading indicators a...

US retail sales are incredibly strong, rising 1.9% month-on-month versus 0.8% consensus. Strength was broad based with 12 out of 13 categories reporting a rise. Nonetheless, we shouldn't take too much away from what was a very good report, which saw sporting goods up 5.7%, health ...

Among the largest names in retail, as represented by the MVIS U.S. Listed Retail 25 Index, the differences between winners and losers this year is dramatic. The difference separating many of the names into winners and losers is their ability to leverage not only ecommerce, but all cha...

Retail sales climbed back to record levels in June and continued to grow in July and August - despite painful levels of unemployment and income loss. But the good times will not last much longer: The massive government income support programs that funded consumer spending are ending, ...

Ecommerce allowed us to continue buying things we probably wouldn't have been able to buy otherwise. Consumer adoption of ecommerce is probably going to be sticky as concerns about the virus fade. Retailers winning during the pandemic were in the right categories and had a strong ...

Barclays upgrades the broad retail sector to a Positive rating for the first time in over ten years as it looks beyond the pandemic. "In the wake of COVID, the Retail segment is: 1) reducing supply on multiple levels and 2) forcing store closures as e-commerce growth accelerates. In 2021, we ...

ShopperTrak forecasts in-store traffic for the six-week holiday season will be down between 22% and 25%. Black Friday (November 27), Super Saturday (December 19) and the day after Christmas (December 26) are expected to be the three busiest shopping days of the year. Many retailers are closin...