Michael Niemira
Michael Niemira
consumers headed holiday promotions provided retailers season selling
As the 'traditional' holiday selling season got underway on Friday, consumers headed to those retailers who provided promotions and discounts.
consumer continue credit hang major passive spend tends unless
Basically, the consumer will hang in there. Unless there's some kind of a major problem, the consumer tends to be more passive and will continue to spend if credit is available.
bit consumer last lower planning question retailers season spend weekend
Retailers have been planning for that lower traffic. The question now is, will the consumer in the last weekend of the season spend a little bit more or not?
although categories consumers december furniture held home last looking month november power purchasing retail sales seems shifted
Looking at November and December together, it seems that retail sales held up pretty well during the holidays, although last month consumers shifted their purchasing power to other categories such as furniture and home goods.
clearly concerns consumer dispel economic gas goes growth impact increases performance positive price results says strong surprised
The strong May performance goes a long way to dispel concerns about the impact of gas price increases on consumer spending, ... I am surprised that the positive results were so widespread. It says 'Gee, the economic growth is clearly countering some of these other drags.'
consumer holiday increases softness underlying worry
The consumer is still very cautious. There was underlying softness in November. It increases the worry about the holiday as a whole.
consumer filter healthy oil prices question react relatively rest sales shows
It shows a relatively healthy sales picture. The question is how will the consumer react when oil prices filter through the rest of the economy.
consumer relatively remained robust spending
Consumer spending has remained relatively robust into 2006.
consumers helped holiday late lift
Procrastinating consumers and a late Hanukkah (December 25) helped to lift the holiday season's performance.
certainly completed holiday households percent season shopping
With only 26 percent of households having completed their holiday shopping . . . this holiday season will certainly come down to the wire.
brought favorable holiday hurt impact isolated last later memorial people shift stores weather weekend year
We thought the shift in the Memorial Day weekend this year to about a week later than last year could hurt holiday sales. That was only an isolated case. I think favorable weather probably had more of an impact that brought people out to stores to shop.
exactly report since talking
What this report said is exactly what I've been talking about since December.
april economy employment fear number performance starting strong together
This number together with the strong April employment performance assuages the fear that the economy was starting to decline.
cumulative effect higher pennies penny shock top week
Now there's a shock. It's not just a penny this week and two pennies higher the week before. And the shock comes on top of the cumulative effect of all those pennies over all those weeks.