Before the Paris attacks, which I discussed Monday, the markets were already reeling from weaker-than-expected retail sales.
Profits were a big miss for upscale retailer Nordstrom (JWN) and department store giant Macy’s (M). Nordstrom’s stock fell 22% at its worst on that news. And Macy’s – that sucker’s down almost 50% from its July peak.
But Nordstrom is not Macy’s, as anyone who shops there will undoubtedly let you know. It’s ritzy, swanky, and serves a higher clientele – the affluent who’ve up to this point been holding up the economy.
They’re the ones who peak in spending later – much later than the average person.
They’re the ones who have benefited most from quantitative easing, which has caused an even bigger bubble in the financial assets, which they largely own.
Now, their time has come. I’ve been forecasting this affluent sector would decline starting by 2016, and Nordstrom’s seems to be proving that.
But the real story comes from looking at growth rates in retail sales over the long term…
Retail sales excluding automobiles have been slowing since 2012. In 2015, they’ve been approaching zero-percent growth. Bad news.
They’re now lower than in the worst of the 2001 recession… and much lower than when the Great Recession began in January 2008.
More bad news!
This sort of indicator is important because it tells you how the economy is doing right now.
Economists revel over lagging indicators like jobs growth that tell the story after the fact (because they’re idiots). Ideally we’d focus on leading indicators, but most of those don’t work in an artificial QE- and ZIRP-driven economy.
But retail sales correlate directly with consumer spending and therefore the economy. That makes them the ultimate consumer-focused coincident indicator that you should focus on near a top.
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