Showing posts with label retail sales. Show all posts
Showing posts with label retail sales. Show all posts

Monday, June 29, 2020

29/6/20: Arithmetic and Retail Sales: Ireland's Case


Monthly v annual, downside v upside... when it comes to rates of change, COVID19 is a good reminder of how hard, intuitively, arithmetic can be...

Take Irish retail sales. Gloriously, monthly changes in retail sales are booming, up 29.5% m/m in volume and 28.4% in value. A 'V-shaped' thingy. Un-gloriously, year on year the sales are 26.6% in volume and 29.1% in value. But here's the ugly thingy: suppose a year ago you were retailing 1 unit (in volume or value). Annual rate of change in these was around 2.55% over 2016-2019 for value and 4.4% in volume. Which means you were 'rationally' expecting to be selling 1.0255 units in value and 1.044 units in volume around this time 2020. You are selling, instead 0.705 units in value and 0.734 units in volume. You have, prudently, planned your investment and spending allocations, based on similar expectations. Your reality is that you are down 31.3 percent on where you were supposed to be in value and 29.7 percent in volume. Notice the 'wedge' between volume and value. Deeper deterioration in value than in volume means not only that your revenue fell off, but that you are working harder to deliver on what revenue you do derive. In basic terms, you now need to be selling roughly 5 percentage points more of volume to derive the same euro value.



In simple analogy terms, you are trying to swim back to shore in a gale-force head wind, with a 12 feet swell, and against a roaring riptide. But otherwise, it's a 'V-shaped' looking thingy...

Friday, May 15, 2020

15/5/20: U.S. Retail Sales and Employment: Pandemicession


Data through April 2020 on U.S. Retail Sales is in, so here are two charts:


Retail Sales are down 15.08% m/m in April, and down 18.25% on 1Q 2020 average. Year on year, sales are down 17.83%. Losses in retail sales in April amounted to USD 65.97 billion m/m and USD80.635 billion y/y. March-April cumulated losses amounted to USD 93 billion y/y.

Meanwhile, jobs losses in the Retail Sales sector have been dramatic as well:


Employment in Retail Sales sector fell 2,127,000 in the first two months of the COVID19 pandemic compared to year prior, with April employment declining 2,111,000 or 13.5%. Overall sector employment numbers at the end of April stood around the levels last seen in 1994, effectively erasing any employment gains made over 26 years.

Good thing all the workers in the sector are at least seeing recovery in their stocks portfolios. Otherwise, there could have been social unrest, you know...

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

29/7/15: Retail@Google: Key Trends on Consumer Demand


Google folks made their Retail@Google event publicly available via videos. Worth listening through on key trends in consumer demand and retail services. The full even pages are here:
- Day 1 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgIN4fB7J4qWK2np5oNbfW5_HlGUcdy4t
- Day 2 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgIN4fB7J4qV_vPmv_T9k7Vpc54b_QDdn

My own contribution to the event is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRR4KwtIYuE. I am looking at 7 key themes of the future in consumer demand, driven by geography of growth, technology and consumer demographics.

Thursday, May 14, 2015

14/5/15: The Happiest Deflationary Consumers of Ireland... April 2015 Data.


Good thing Consumer Confidence is booming in Ireland, cause otherwise we might get a wind that domestic demand for goods and services is going nowhere:


Now, how would we get such an idea. you might ask? Well, simples.com : take a look at consumer prices:

Spot the trend? That's right: CPI was down 0.7% y/y in April and down 0.6% on average over the last 3 months.

And in case you want to see what 'sustains' at least some semblance of non-totally-collapsing prices? Why here it is:

Well, the only reason we are not a complete basket case come inflationary dynamics is thanks to tobacco and alcohol (up whooping 26.5% over the pre-crisis average thanks to tax extraction by the State), and electricity and rents (pushing housing, water, electricity, gas etc up 7.1% over the pre-crisis levels - you might also call that tax extraction, for much of these increases goes to fund semi-states and quangos and soon-to-come Irish Water), Health (where much of the 'savage cuts' were just something masking the actual hikes in cost of services to those of us who pay for them), and Education (where state extraction of funds was so rampant as outpace by a factor of 10 overall inflation in the economy), and Restaurants & Hotels (where the cut in Vat did nothing to alleviate price pressures on consumers), and a bunch of state-related and regulated prices that went into Miscellaneous category.

And so just as with retail sales, deflation is now consistent with rising consumer confidence. Happiness attained, at last. Just never ask what happens to demand when prices (imported from the rest of the Euro area) start creeping up across all sectors... that is something polite Irish economy forecasters don't want to talk about...

Friday, March 27, 2015

27/315: Irish Retail Sales: February 2015


Core retail sales for February 2015 (excluding motors):
  • Value of core retail sales in Ireland rose 0.22% y/y in February, having posted 0.67% growth in January - a significant slowdown in growth. 3mo average index for retails sales in value has rise 1.1% y/y in December 2014-February 2015 period compared to the same period a year ago. 6mo average through February 2015 is up 1.23% y/y. This is weak growth at best, given the levels of activity in the sector: 3mo average through February 2015 is down 33.93% on peak and down 3.64% on pre-crisis average.
  • Volume of core retail sales fared, as usual, better, boosted by extremely low inflation in prices. Volume index rose 4.52% y/y in February 2015, after posting 4.61% growth in January 2015 (a slight slowdown in the pace of growth). 3mo average through February 2015 is up 4.8% y/y, and 6mo average is up 4.3% y/y. Still, compared to peak, volume of sales is still 25.3% below pre-crisis highs, although it is up 9.3% compared to the pre-crisis average.


As chart above clearly shows, the divergence between the Consumer Confidence Index and Value of retail sales activity remains in place, while Volume index is co-moving with the Confidence indicator. (more on this below).

Based on links between reported Consumer confidence and actual retail sales, Volume of retail sales is currently trending at relatively average levels (see chart below, green dot marking current reading), while Value indicator is trending well below the average reading consistent with reported Consumer confidence (see light orange dot marking the current reading).


Overall activity in the retail sector, however, is still improving. The chart below shows my own Retail Sector Activities Index (RSAI) that takes into the account trends in volume and value indices, plus the trend in consumer confidence. Currently, the main drivers for this improvement are: deflationary dynamics boosting volumes of sales and still elevated readings for Consumer Confidence.



However, rates of growth in both Volume and Value indicators are weaker than pre-crisis averages and are worryingly weak in Value terms (remember, retail sector profits and employment levels are predominantly the functions of value of sales, not volume of sales):


Finally, onto correlations: table below sums up correlations for each index, showing negative correlations between Consumer Confidence Index and Value and Volume of Retail Sales indices for the period from June 2008 through present (from the start of the crisis). It is worth noting that correlations have moved into positive territory from around 2012 on, although the latest readings suggest some temporary weakening of these.


Conclusions: setting aside Consumer Confidence readings, value and volume of retail sales indices are rising. However, as in previous months, increases in volume of sales are not matched by increases in value of sales, suggesting that overall sector activity improvements are driven primarily by deflationary price dynamics and only in the second order by improving demand. According to Consumer Confidence, we have been back in 2007 levels of activity since the start of Q2 2014. This is simply not supported by the annualised growth rates recorded in both Volumes of sales and Values of sales. Meanwhile, the levels of sales indices remain deeply below their pre-crisis peak readings and in value of sales terms, below pre-crisis average.

I will look at sub-sector decomposition of the retail sales indices performance once we have data for March, so we can strip out monthly volatility and look at quarterly comparatives.

Friday, January 9, 2015

10/1/2015: Irish Retail Sales: November


Irish retail sales figures for November, published by the CSO earlier this week came in at the weaker end of the trend. Here is detailed analysis.

On seasonally-adjusted basis:

  • Value of retail sales ex-motors fell 0.31% m/m in November having posted a 1.04% gain in October. 3mo MA through November was down 0.11% on 3mo MA through October, which itself was down 0.07% on 3mo MA through September.
  • Volume of retail sales ex-motors was up 0.19% m/m in November, having posted a rise of 0.96% in October. 3mo MA through November was up 0.26% m/m  for the 3 months through November compared to 3mo MA through October, having previous posted identical increase in October, compared to 3mo MA through September.
  • Meanwhile, Consumer Confidence was, for a change, more closely aligned with value of sales indicator. Consumer Confidence indicator was down0.23% m/m in November, having posted 0.68% decline in October.

Two charts to illustrate:




The first chart above plots longer-range series, showing two main insights:

  1. Consumer confidence continues to vastly outpace actual retail sales performance in terms of both value and volume of sales, although we are starting to see de-acceleration in consumer confidence growth in terms of trend. Nonetheless, consumer confidence bottomed-out around July 2008. Actual retail sales did not bottom out until June 2012 (in Volume and Value of sales terms).
  2. Since bottoming out, retail sales have been performing with virtually divergent dynamics. Trend in Volume of sales is relatively strong, upward. Meanwhile, trend in Value of sales is relatively flat, upward. In more recent months, this divergence is increasing once again.

The above is again confirmed in November data and in year-on-year comparatives too, as shown in the next chart.


Year on year (based on seasonally unadjusted data):

  • Value of retail sales ex-motors rose 1.33% y/y in November having posted a 1.91% gain y/y in October. 3mo MA through November 2014 was up only 1.4% on 3mo MA through November 2013.
  • Volume of retail sales ex-motors was up robust 3.92% y/y in November, having posted a rise of 4.40% in October. 3mo MA through November was up 3.7% y/y.

The above data clearly supports trends identified in previous months: Irish consumers are not striking, nor are they holding back consumption. Instead, they are willing to buy when they see value. Unfortunately for our retailers, that means more sales with lower profit margins. As the chart below shows, we now have 13 consecutive months of growth in volume of sales outstripping value of sales and out of the last 21 months, only one posted growth rate in value of sales in excess of volume of sales.


Using my Retail Sector Activity Index to plot underlying activity across the sector (note: the RSAI has much higher correlations with both indices of retail sales than consumer confidence), chart below shows that in 2014, growth rate in overall sector activity slowed down significantly compared to 2013.


The above, of course, is rather natural for the recovery that first produces a faster bounce up and then settles into more 'sustainable' over time rate of growth. The problem, however, is that current activity by value of retail sales is still 39.1% below the pre-crisis peak levels and for volume of sales it is 34% below peak. Even compared to the pre-crisis average (2005-2007), activity is down 11.2% in value terms and 3.2% lower in volume terms.

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

29/7/2014: Are Irish Retail Sales Getting Better or Growing by Attrition?

Ah, so apparently Irish Retail sales are booming at historically record levels of increases. My view is - Retail Sales are rising, not booming, in Volume of sales and are posting basically shallow rates of increases in Value of sales.

Ok, spot the trends here:


Err...

  • Core retail sales by Volume are running below 2010 levels, below peak levels, below short-term trend, albeit the trend is rising. M/M the volumes are up +0.1% - not blistering, right? June reading is only 1.46% ahead of the crisis period average. 3mo average (Q2 average) is 4.5% up y/y - which is good. June reading is 3.6% up y/y which worse than the earlier part of the quarter. 6mo MA is up 3.4% y/y (so that is H1 2014 on H1 2013) - which is good. But sales volumes are still down 36.2% on pre-crisis peak. You do the maths as to when that recovery will get us back to pre-crisis levels of activity.
  • Core retail sales by Value (the stuff that pays wages and hires people in the sector) are running along the relatively shallow up ward trend. M/M there is zero change despite weather effects which should have driven sales up. Relative to crisis period average value of sales is down 1.1% in June 2014. Q2 2014 is up 2.6% on Q2 2013, but June 2014 is up 1.94% y/y so again, slowdown in the rate of growth toward the end of the quarter. H1 2014 is up only 1.5% y/y and Q2 2014 value of sales is down 40% on peak.
  • Meanwhile, consumer confidence is continuing to run at slightly more moderate rates than previously, albeit still well ahead of where retail sales are.
Year on year growth rates are next:


Things are healthier in H1 2014 than before, but still well below the rates of growth recorded before the crisis. Anyone claiming dramatically higher rates of growth in H1 2014 must be referencing the freakish jump in sales in April 2014. Stripping this out, we are still better off in H1 2014 than in H1 2013, but the rates of growth in 2014 are not exactly dramatic: ex-April average y/y growth in H1 2014 was 0.9% for Value and 2.75% for Volume, comparable figures for H1 2013 were (stripping out that 6mo most volatile month of April) 0.72% and 0.88%, respectively. 

So again, again and again: accelerating growth is present in Volumes sold, but not in Value of sales. If you think that Volumes of sales are creating jobs, increasing retailers' investments and rising sector contribution to the economy, good luck to you.

However, whatever increases in the retail sales might have been, as the chart below shows, we are still far away from getting back to pre-crisis peak levels of retail sector activity:


Now, when you realise that we are into seven years of the retail sales staying below their peak, you have to start wondering if 'getting better' is the same as 'growing by attrition'?..

Monday, June 9, 2014

9/6/2014: ESRI Consumer Confidence Indicator Moderates in May


Some hopium going out of the market in Ireland: ESRI Consumer confidence for May moderated from sky-high 87.2 in April to 79.4 in May, bringing the series slightly closer to reality mapped by Retail Sales data on the ground:


3mo MA for the series is now at 83.2, virtually flat on 3mo MA through February 2014, and on 6mo MA of 83.3. In other words, the series trending flat over 6 months, and are sitting at still sky-high levels. Meanwhile, volumes of retail trade (core, ex-motors) are rising along a decent trend, but value of retail sales is showing barely perceptible upward momentum.

Note, seasonally, for May, there is no established momentum in the series either up or down.

Thursday, January 2, 2014

2/1/2014: Economics of Christmas


This is an unedited version of my Sunday Times column from December 29, 2013.


December is the month that economic forecasters learn to love and to hate.

They love the role the month plays in the annual aggregates for core economic time series. Get December trends right and you are free to bask in the warm glow of having an in-the-money forecast until the first quarter results start trickling into the newsflow.

They learn to hate a number of things that can make Christmas seasons notoriously volatile, especially around the time when economies switch paths from, say, recession to growth. Miss that moment and your forecasts will be out by a mile for a long time to come. Remember 2008-2009 when all analysts were racing against the tide of real data to update their projections downward? One of the reasons for this was that the peak of uncertainty fell on the last quarter. Secondly, Christmas behavior – by both consumers and businesses – is saddled with deep behavioural biases. This does not make holidays’ data fit well with mathematical models.

Ireland is a great case study for all of the above forces interacting with each other to underwrite our economic fortunes. Take the latest statistics, released last week, covering quarterly national accounts through Q3 2013. While this period does not include holidays shopping season, it is revealing of the strange currents in underlying data. Adjusted for inflation, personal consumption fell 1.22 percent in Q1-Q3 2013 and was down 1 percent in Q3 2013 relative to Q3 2012. In other words, household demand continues to underperform overall GDP and GNP in the economy.

This contrasts with continuous gains recorded in consumer confidence, which rose more than 21 percent year on year by the end of Q3 2013. In fact, the two series have been moving in the opposite direction since the mid-2009.

Some of the reasons for this paradoxical situation were revealed in the recent Christmas Spending Survey 2013, released by Deloitte. Despite the positive newsflow from the GDP and GNP aggregates, consumers in Ireland are more concerned with the state of domestic economy than their European counterparts. Overall, the percentage of Europeans who believe their purchasing power has diminished in 2013 compared to 2012 amounts to 41 percent. In Ireland, the figure is 48 percent. Only 26 percent of Irish consumers are expecting their disposable incomes to rise next year. In core spending cohorts comprising the 25-54 year olds, average proportion of population expecting improved incomes over the next year is even lower.

In other words, it seems to matter who asks the question in a survey and it matters what type of question is being asked. A question about confidence asked by an official surveyor yields one type of a reply. A question about actual tangible income expectations asked by a less formal private company surveyor yields a different outcome. These are two classic behavioural biases that wreck havoc with the data.

Despite the gloom, however, Ireland still leads Europe in terms of per capita spending during the Christmas season. Per Deloitte survey we plan to spend around EUR894 per household on gifts, entertainment and food in the last three weeks of December 2013, down from EUR966 reported in surveys a year ago and down from the actual spend of EUR909.

In brief, we are a nation of confident consumers with pessimistic outlook on the present and the future, who are spending less, but still outspend others when it comes to Christmas. A veritable hell of reality for our forecasters.


But what makes December a nightmarish month for those making a living predicting economic trends, makes it so much more exciting for research economists interested in explaining our choices and behaviour. For them, Christmas is when social mythology collides with reality.

Christmas purchases allow us to gauge the consumers’ ability to assess the value of things. In economics terms, the valuations involved are known as willingness to pay and willingness to accept. The former reflects the price we are willing to pay to obtain a pair of the proverbial woolen socks with a Christmas tree and Santa embroidered on them. The latter references the price we are willing to accept in order to give up the said pair of socks after they are passed to us by our kids with a ‘Merry Christmas, Dad!’ cheer.

In numerous studies, our willingness to accept is substantially higher than our willingness to pay – a phenomenon known as the endowment effect.

Christmas shopping data actually tells us that the endowment effect is present across various cultures. The data also tells us that the sentimental or subjective value attached to a gifted good is not a function of price. In other words, spending three times as much on Christmas festivities and gifts as the Dutch do, does not make Irish consumers any merrier.

But spending more has its costs. Some recent surveys indicate that up to one third of all Irish consumers will take on new debt during the Christmas season. In the Netherlands that figure is around one fifth. And long-term indebtedness is a costly proposition when it comes to social, psychological and financial wellbeing.

On the other hand, intangible quality of gifts matters to the consumers both in terms of giving and receiving. As the result, we tend to form expectations of what others value in gifts we give and we also match these expectation with our personal preferences. This induces series of biases and errors into our choices of gifts we purchase.

In Ireland, books represent top preference as a gift for both giving and receiving. In the majority of other countries in Europe, the matched preferences are for giving cash. Before we pat ourselves on the back for being a literature-loving nation, however, give this fact a thought. Giving cash provides a better matching between preferences of gift giver and gift recipient. In basic economics terms, cash gifts eliminate deadweight losses associated with gift giving. This, in turn, means that in countries where cash dominates physical goods giving, smaller expenditures on gifts achieve better outcomes in terms of recipients’ satisfaction. The reason for this is simple: we say we like something as a gift, but we still end up returning or recycling up to 30 percent (based on various studies) of gifts given to us. Why? Because goods are rearely homogeneous, so our preferences for books do not perfectly distinguish which books we like.

Gifts also have a reciprocal value. Christmas surveys have led us to a realization that the power of ‘give to receive’ thinking works well outside the holidays season as well. For example, charitable donations rise robustly when request for donations is accompanied by a forward gift from a charity. In one study, relative frequency of donations to a charity can rise by up to 75 percent when a gift is included with a request.

Still, research in economics overwhelmingly suggests that Christmas behavior by consumers delivers a significant deadweight loss to the economy and consumers-own wellbeing. In other words, our consumption patterns around Christmas can result in misallocation of resources that are not recoverable through the gains in retail sales, services, taxes and other economic activities. Given evidence from other countries, the deadweight loss from Christmas 2013 to the Irish economy can be anywhere in the region of EUR150-450 million.


Beyond economics of gift giving, popular mythology has it that Christmas is also a period of excess, especially when it comes to food and alcohol consumption. On average, this year, Irish consumers are expected to spend EUR259 on food per household. This is well ahead of the European average and reflects not only differences in prices, but also the level of alcohol consumption and our tendency to bundle food purchases with purchases of alcoholic beverages.

Culinary exploits of the festive season are generally subdued in quality and variety of food, but we make up for it with quantity. Marketing research suggests that the guiding principle to a successful Christmas meal is ‘safe, sound and abundant’ traditional dishes, rather than creative and experimental fare. Thus, virtually all cultures celebrating Christmas have a regulation-issued set of traditions designed to combat the festive season’s calories. These range from New Year resolutions (rarely followed through) to periods of fasting and abstinence (often tried, but rarely verified in terms of health virtues they claim to deliver).

One recent study looked at 54 million death certificates issued in the US from 1979 through 2004. The authors found that “there are holiday spikes for most major disease groups and for all demographic groups, except children. In the two weeks starting with Christmas, there is an excess of 42,325 deaths from natural causes above and beyond the normal winter increase.”

Another medical study found evidence of a significant weight gain in the US population during the December holidays. According to the study, the mean weight increased by 370 grams on average per person during the holidays. This weight gain remained intact during the rest of the year. In other words, all the New Year’s resolutions and health club memberships gifts cannot undo the damage done by turkey and gravy.


Last, but not least, popular mythology ascribes to the economists the definition given by Oscar Wild to a cynic: “A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing”. But studies of the Christmas data show that for economists, the size of the gap between sentimental value of the gifts and their retail or market prices is lower than for other professions. It seems, the economists know both the price and the value of Christmas gifts better than other consumers. Sadly, that knowledge seems to be of little help when it comes to understanding what is going on with the Irish economy at large.




Box-out:

The latest instalment in the European banking union saga agreed two weeks ago was heralded by the EU leaders as the final assurance that the taxpayers will never again be forced to shore up European banks in a financial crisis. In reality, the final agreement on the structuring of the Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM) is a sad exemplification of the bureaucratic dysfunctionality that is Europe.

In the US, a single entity is responsible for assessing the viability of a bank experiencing an adverse shock and subsequently determining on the action to be taken in resolving the shock. That authority is the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or FDIC.

In Europe, based on the latest agreement between the European Finance Ministers, the SRM will involve at least 148 senior officials across eight diverse decision-making bodies. The resolution procedures can involve up to nine, and at least seven different stages of approval. Majority of these stages require either simple or super-majority voting. The whole process is so convoluted, one doubts it can be relied upon to deliver a functional and timely response to any crisis that might impact Euro area banking in the future.

Is it time we renamed the European Banking Union a Byzantium Redux?

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

8/13/2013: Sunday Times, August 11: Wither Middle Ireland


This is an unedited version of my Sunday Times article from August 11, 2013.


Recent data from Irish retailers, aggregate services indices as well as household surveys paints a picture of an economy divided in misery and fortunes. Following an already unprecedented five years of straight declines, domestic demand, stripping out one-off effects, such as weather, continues to shrink. This is the paralysed core of our economy. At the opposite side of the spectrum, pockets of strength remain within some demographic groups – namely the young and mobile professionals and debt-free older households. These form a de facto sub-economy only marginally attached to Ireland’s long-term future. With personal consumption still accounting for over half of the total annual GDP, a society torn between these two divergent drivers of domestic demand, savings and investment, is an economy at risk.


On the surface, CSO data through H1 2013 shows that Irish retail sales (excluding cars) grew modestly in June 2013 when compared to the same period a year ago. Much of this growth was due to weather effects and these are likely to strengthen even further in the third quarter. However, removing food, fuel and bars sales, core retail sales were down 1.7 percent in value and were up 0.8% percent in volume in April-June 2013, year-on-year. In other words, core sales are still being driven primarily by price declines rather than by organic growth in demand.

Meanwhile, aggregate data released this week, covering services (as opposed to sales of goods alone) showed annual declines in June 2013 in accommodation, and food and beverage services activities.

The bad news is that five years into the process of reducing household expenditures, Irish consumers are still tightening their belts. Not only discretionary spending is dropping, but demand for staples is contracting as well. At the end of H1 2013, retail sales were down on 2007 levels for both durable and non-durable household consumption items, as well as food.

This data is largely consistent with the analysis of the household budget surveys released earlier this month.  These surveys showed that compared to 2009, Irish households have cut deeper into their bills in twelve months through Q3 2012. Demand for groceries, clothing and footware, recreation, health Insurance and education saw continued cutbacks. For example, in the 24 months prior to June 2011, 56 percent of Irish households cut down on food purchases. Further 51 percent cut spending in the 12 months through September 2012. Despite these already severe cutbacks, industry surveys show that Irish households are still concerned with high cost of basic consumables.

Households’ propensity to cut costs has risen in the twelve months through September 2012 compared to the 24 months period to June 2011 as those still holding onto their jobs are now shifting into deeper cost savings mode. This busts the myth that the only people forced to severely cut their spending are the unemployed and the poor. The largest proportion of severe cuts in the earlier part of the recession fell onto the shoulders of the households where at least one person was jobless, followed by students. Back then households in employment were the category second least impacted by household budgets cuts. Last year, households still in employment were the second most likely to reduce spending. Significantly - households with some members on home duties, retired or not at work due to illness or disability posted the shallowest average cuts of all demographic groups.

The above explains why the data from multiples retailers in Ireland has been showing a V-shaped pattern of changes in consumer demand, with higher demand witnessed in lower-priced categories of own-brand goods supplied by discount retailers, such as Aldi and Lidl, and the premium own-brands of traditional multiples, such as Tesco. Demand for mid-range priced goods usually purchased by the middle class continued to fall.

Ditto for the luxury end of the market, with exception of Dublin, as sales of food and drink in specialist stores have fallen almost 20 percent on pre-crisis peak. Exactly the same pattern of shift away from the middle of price range sales emerged in the demand for electrical goods.


The drivers for the above trends are crystal clear. Middle Ireland is under severe pressures financially, while Happily-Retired and Yappy Irelands are having a relatively easy recession or living through the good times. The main force working through the Irish domestic demand is that of polarization of households not along the lines of employed v unemployed, but along the more complex and fragmented demographic lines.

The average number of spending cutbacks in 12 months through September 2012 for households with no person at work stood at 2.6 categories of spending. The same numbers for households with one and two persons working were 3.3 and 3.2 categories, respectively.

This pattern of cutbacks and income distribution changes across the households is also strengthening over time. In effect, due to Government policies, Ireland is becoming a country with severely polarised distribution of financial well-being. This polarisation is contrary to the one witnessed in normal economies and is different from the one that majority of out policymakers and analysts have been decrying to-date.

The Great Recession has finally exhausted ordinary savings of both working and unemployed households, while lack of income growth has meant that even those in employment are now sinking under the weight of debt and tax and cost inflation driven by the State budgetary policies to-date.

Last week, CSO reported distribution of the households by their ability to manage bills and debts over 12 months prior to July-September 2012. Of households with at least one adult aged 65 and over, up to 28 percent were experiencing difficulties in managing their debts and bills. For households with all adults under the age of 65 the corresponding number was up to 46 percent. Up to 69 percent of the families with children were in the same boat. The older the respondent was, the less pressure on paying their bills their reported.

In normal economies it is the older families that face tighter budget constraints. In today's Ireland it is the younger and the middle-age families with children that are being pressured the hardest by the crisis. This bedrock of financial health in the normal times has been pulled from underneath the economy by the Great Recession.

At the same time, the crisis has generated a new class of the relatively well-off. Based on employment levels and quality, earnings, as well as regular and irregular bonuses data, three sectors in the Irish economy stand out as the winners during the crisis: the ICT services, specialist exports-focused services and international financial services. All three sectors are dominated by younger workers with high percentage of employees coming from abroad and working on a temporary assignment basis here. The demographic they represent is primarily from mid-20s through mid-30s, with smaller size families. These groups of employees are also heavily concentrated geographically, with exporting services sectors workers primarily living in Dublin, followed by a handful of other core urban areas.

Even as early as 2006-2007, market research has shown that these types of households favour premium consumption of convenience food, spend more of their income on going out and travel abroad, and less on purchases of durable goods, household goods, education and health insurance. They do not invest in this economy and hold off-shore most of their long-term savings. Their financial investments are also held and managed abroad and often include mostly shares and options in their own employers. Their children are not going to continue growing up in Ireland and will not be a part of our future workforce. The skills they accumulate while working here are transitory to the overall stock of Irish human capital. On a social level, their demand for entertainment is currently best exemplified by the booming restaurants and bars across the D2-D4-D6 areas of Dublin and stands in stark contrast to Middle Ireland’s hollowed out town centres and neighborhoods with empty storefronts and vacant building sites.


Today’s Ireland is a society where the middle class and large swaths of the upper-middle class have been dragged under water by the combination of the unprecedented crisis, compounded by rampant state-sanctioned cost inflation and legacy debt.

The data on domestic demand suggests that we might be entering a classic ‘Bull trap’. Here, tight rental markets in the leafy South Dublin neighborhoods fuels sales of rentable properties to service the needs of the Yappy Ireland. These pockets of activity are at a risk of generating inflated expectations of incoming prosperity. Don’t be fooled by this – the risks to the real Irish economy are still there, in plain view, in the streets of real Ireland.

Recognising this reality requires the Government to reconsider the tax increases that are impacting adversely the middle and the upper-middle classes. It also means that the State must reform, rapidly and thoroughly the semi-state sector to reduce the cost drag exerted by the Irish utilities, transportation, health and education services providers on Middle Ireland families’ balancesheets.  Lastly, prudent risk management requires for us to manage very carefully the process of mortgages arrears restructuring and debt work-outs. While many economy have survived sovereign and banking sectors busts, no economy can emerge from a crisis having destroyed its middle classes.



Box-out:

In Ptolemaic cosmology, astronomers believed that the Earth was the centre of the Universe. To balance this Universe, Ptolemists used to draw complex sets of larger and smaller circles - known as epicycles - to describes their orbits around the Earth. The problem with epicycles spelled the demise of the Ptolemaic cosmology in the end: as the known number of planets and stars increased, the system of superficial orbits rapidly collapsed under its own complexity. The Ptolemaic absurdity, however, is still alive today in Irish economic policies. A year ago, the Government had a clear choice of policy options: a site-value tax (SVT) that can be levied on all forms of properties, including land, or a residential property tax that can be levied only on structures. In a study covering all known forms of policy mechanisms used to fund public infrastructure around the world,  submitted to the Department of Environment, I have argued that one of the major advantage of the SVT over a property tax was that it would have incentivised more efficient use land, reducing land hoarding and speculation. There were multiple other advantages of SVT over the property tax as well. Alas, the Government opted for a property tax favouring under-use of land over all other properties. This tax suits the major lobbies influencing the State: farmers and well-off rural landed families. Fast-forward eight months from last December: this week, Dublin City Council called for a levy on unused vacant sites. Hundreds of sites lay vacant across the city - blotching the cityscape and posing a threat to personal safety to many workers, as well as an unpleasant reminder of the property bust and economy's dysfunctionality to the would-be foreign investors. Dublin City has been trying to force this land back into development since 2009, although no one in the city has a slightest idea where the demand for such development might come from. Thus, our Ptolemaic system of economic policies is about to draw yet another contrived, complex and inefficient balancing circle on the map of our tax policies to compensate for the Government's rejection of the site value tax. After all, managing the superficial complexity of a political economy that attempts to appease the landed classes, while satisfying the needs and demands of foreign investors and urban authorities is an arduous task

Thursday, July 11, 2013

11/7/2013: Consumer Confidence Boost in June

ESRI/KBC Consumer Confidence indicator for Ireland posted a surprising jump in June compared to May, rising to 70.6 from 61.2. The index is now at the highest reading since October 2007. There are many caveats to this increase, as contained in the ESRI/KBC release, available here:
http://www.esri.ie/irish_economy/consumer_sentiment/latest_consumer_sentiment/PRJune_13.pdf

The chart below plots June reading for the indicator (vertical red line), as well as the latest (May 2013) pairings of Consumer Confidence against Volume and Value indices of retail sales (labeled as 'Current').

The chart below puts the time series for retail sales (through May) and Consumer Confidence (thorugh June):

The core points to add to the release (linked above) is that

  1. Consumer Confidence has little direct connection to core (ex-motors) retail sales indices, with low R-squares for both relationships.
  2. Consumer Confidence shows more volatility than the volume of retail sales across all time periods. Pre-January 2008, STDEV for Value of Retail Sales is at 7.0 and for Volume at 6.6, with Consumer Confidence at 14.8. Since January 2008, Consumer Confidence STDEV is at 7.9, against 4.5 for Volume and 7.4 for Value of core retail sales. Since January 2010, STDEV to Consumer Confidence is at 6.3, against that for Value of retail sales at 1.3 and Volume of 1.8.
  3. Last chart above clearly shows divergent trends in retail sales and confidence series from July 2008 through June 2010 and from March 2011 through today.

This is not to criticise the Consumer Confidence Indicator quality, but to caution against any short-term calls to be based on indicator alone. To see serious change in the underlying consumer propensity to spend and to see any serious change in the underlying inputs into the national accounts, we have to wait for a confirmation over time of the stronger trend in all three series.

Saturday, April 27, 2013

27/4/2013: Bars, Pubs, Recession Craic

I recently watched an Irish comedian (let's keep the names out of this) quip that Irish people are not having that bad of a time during this recession, as we are still going out for pints, and that is all that matters in measuring our happiness.

Obviously, humor aside, there can be some truth in this. Most of entertainment and 'cultural' life in this country revolves about the pub or (in shwankier neighborhoods - around a cocktail bar). So bars sales can be a somewhat decent indicator of some sort of the social well-being in this country.

How did bar sales fare in the Great Recession? Four charts:

By value (chart above),

  • Bar sales were down 18.1% on average in the period from January 2008 through present (March 2013), aka pre-crisis period, compared to the crisis period from January 2005 through December 2007.
  • In March 2013 they were down 14.6% on pre-crisis average. 3mo average through March 2013 was down 1.5% y/y.
  • So by value of sales, we are not heading for the pub as much.
  • Worse, compared to both All Retail Sales and to Retail Sales of Food - Bars sales are doing much worse. 
  • Noting that Food sales are running above pre-crisis average, both currently and on the basis of crisis average, and also noting that Food sales are signals of us staying more at home, rather than going out to pubs and bars and restaurants, there is no indicator here that we are having good times during this recession. At least not in the pubs.
Next: volume of sales:


Again as with value of sales, volume of sales index shows that the above conjecture of 'good times' is not holding up. In fact, comparative dynamics for retail sales in bars in volume are worse than dynamics in value.

Here's a more distilled version, showing dynamics in bars sales compared to all retail sales:

And here's an illustration of divergent dynamics between food and bars sales:


Seems like if we are having 'craic' in this recession, it is not in our locals or in the Temple Bar, but with a bottle of cheaper booze at home, drumstick in hand, slippers on...

Thursday, June 28, 2012

28/6/2012: Retail Sales for May 2012

The retail sales figures for May are out and are, as expected, not pretty.


The volume of retail sales (i.e. ex-price effects) decreased by 0.1% in May 2012 m/m and there was an annual decrease of 2.1%. The value of retail sales decreased by 0.4% in May 2012 when compared with April 2012 and there was an annual change of –1.5%. 



Relative to annual peak, sales are now down to 72.9% in value terms and 77.9% in volume terms. Relative to monthly peak, they are down 25.6% in value and 19.8% in volume.


We have now gone two consecutive months of m/m declines in value and volume and five consecutive months of y/y declines. Both 3mo and 6mo MA for value and volume indices are ahead of May reading. For value index, 2012 average to-date is 87.28, which is below 2010 average of 88.83 and 2011 average of 88.15. For volume, current 2012 average to-date is 91.02, which is worse than 2011 average of 92.69 and 2010 average of 93.51.

Quarterly movements are shown below:



On core retail sales side (ex-motors), the volume of retail sales increased by 0.8% in May 2012 when compared with April 2012, while there was also an annual increase of 0.8%. There was a monthly increase of 0.7% in the value of retail sales and an annual increase of 1.5%. Value increase is less significant than volume increase, so we are still witnessing margins pressures. Survival of the fittest in the sector is not yet completed.


May marked the first month of core retail sales increase in annual terms since December 2011 in value and volume. Currently, value index is running at 81.11% of the annual peak and volume index is at 84.79% of the series annual peak. However, in value terms the 2012 average to-date (95.7) is slightly ahead of 2011 average of 95.6 and is below 2010 average of 97.6. In volume terms, 2012 average to-date is 98.8, which is lower than 2011 average of 99.8 and 2010 average of 102.7.


Per CSO: The sectors with the largest month on month volume decreases are Bars (-4.2%), Books, Newspapers and Stationery (-2.8%), Electrical Goods (-2.5%) and Motor Trade (-1.9%). A monthly increase was seen in Food, Beverages & Tobacco (6.5%), Hardware, Paints & Glass (6.3%) and Pharmaceuticals Medical & Cosmetic Articles (3.8%). Pills, booze, smokes... hopefully not paint for inhalation purposes.



International comparatives through April are shown above. Not a pretty sights across the board.

Thursday, December 22, 2011

22/12/2011: Retail Sales for November

Ok, folks, RTE is shouting "Biggest Retail Sales Rise Since March" (see link here) but you do know to turn to this blog to see the real numbers. So here are the updated charts and historical trends and some analysis.

It is worth noting that my Retail Sector Activity Index for October has predicted this uplift:
"A large jump in consumer confidence in October (to 63.7 from September reading of 53.3) is the core driver of improvement in the  overall Index od Retail Sector Activity, which now stands at 102.2 - above the expansion level of 100. This means that we can expect a small uplift in retail sector activity in months ahead, but this uplift can manifest itself through improved volumes of sales (value static, so margins declining) or improved value of sales (inflation) or both (more demand-driven uplift)."
Please note that below analysis exactly confirms the above predictions.

However, this does not mean that I share with the RTE headline excitement about the actual sales indices performance in November 2011. Here's why:

First of all - general retail sales (including motors), seasonally adjusted:

  • Value of retail sales rose from 87.2 in October to 88.2 in November, an increase of 1.1% mom, a drop of 0.68% yoy. History in making? Well, not really - in 2 months of October and November, retail sales rose 1.50%, in 2 months of May-June retail sales value grew 1.25% (statistically indifferent from 1.5% gain in last two months), and in 2 months between February and March they rose 1.26%, which is again identical - statistically-speaking - to the rise in last 2 months. So history is not being made here.
  • Significantly, annual rate of declines has slowed down in November to -0.7%, which is the best reading since June when there was zero change in retail sales year on year, but then, again, in January value of sales was up 4.3% yoy and then in February it was down just -0.2% yoy. Now, again, no historical headlines here.
  • Let's take a look at the trends. At 88.2 current reading is ahead of 3mo MA of 87.4 and 6mo MA of 87.7, but it is below 201 average of 88.86. In other words, current sales are worse than monthly average for 2010. And current sales are slightly ahead of 2011 monthly average to-date of 87.82%. Not that the RTE would bother mentioning that.
  • Relative to the peak, value of retail sales is still down 24.10% in November.
  • In Volume terms, there was a 1.6% monthly rise from 91.9 in October to 93.3 in November. This is statistically insignificant difference too. In 2 months through November, index of the volume of retail sales rose 1.97%, in May-June it was up 2.07% and we do know that it was not exactly boom time on the high street back then.
  • Volume index is now down 0.8% yoy and 19.8% down on peak. 3moMA is at 92.23 and 6mo MA at 92.47. However, 2010 monthly average is at 93.6, which is ahead of November monthly reading. So, as with value index, the 'record sales' in November are lower than the average monthly sales volumes in 2010. 
Charts to illustrate:



Frankly, I am not seeing anything that jumps out on an extraordinary scale. Some uplift, most likely supported by the decline in foreign travel for shopping and by better weather conditions this year than in 2010, but hardly spectacular. Only notable increases yoy are in Non-specialized stores ex-Department Stores (where inflationary pressures drove value up 1.4% while volume was up only 0.5%), Fuel (where inflation was so rampant that value of sales rose 10.3% while volume of sales fell 3.7%) and Electrical goods (where season sales started early and cuts were running deep with value +0.5% and volume up 7.5% yoy). everything else was either down or flat. You tell me if this is something that we can cheer about?

Let's take another look at the pure index numbers: 
  • Value index at 88.2 was the highest reading since June when it stood at 88.8. In last 12 months through November, index was in excess of 88.2 or equal to it on 5 occasions other than November 2011, which makes this month's reading oh, sort-of average.
  • Volume index at 93.3 in November 2011 is the highest since 93.8 in June 2011 and is the 4th highest in the last 12 months - also not exactly a trend-breaking performance.


So adjusting for motors sales, core retail sales indices were:
  • Value of core retail sales rose 1% mom from 94.6 to 95.6 in November. November 2011 reading is 0.1% ahead of November 2010 reading and the current index stands at the 5th highest reading level over the last 12 months.
  • Relative to peak value of core retail sales is down 19.39%. 2010 monthly average reading is 97.57% - ahead of November 2011 reading. More ironically, year-to-date 2011 average monthly reading is 95.62 which is identical to the November 2011 reading.
  • By all possible comparisons, November 2011 reading for the Value of core retail sales (ex-motors) is average.
  • Volume reading reached 100.6 - the first over-100 reading since April 2011. Index is now up 1.8% mom and down -0.8% yoy. This is the set of numbers that excited the RTE the most.
  • Yet, 2010 monthly average reading for this index was 102.7 - above the November 2011 reading. However, importantly, 2011 year-to-date average monthly reading is 99.7 - statistically insignificantly different from November 2011, but still below November reading in actual terms.
  • Still, November 2011 is worse than the average month of 2010. Not exactly a strong performance.

Charts to illustrate:




Ok, let's summarize the above: supposedly we had an exciting retail sales month in November. Yet, by all measures CSO reports, November performance this year was worse than average monthly performance in 2010, and by 3 out of 4 measures reported by CSO, November was worse than the average month in 11 months from January 2011 through November 2011.

Oh, and as an aside, here are the comparatives in retail sales volumes across Ireland, EU17 and EU27 (data reported with a monthly lag here, so latest we have is for October sales):

Monday, November 28, 2011

29/11/2011: Retail Sales for October: Ireland


Irish retail sales continue on downward trend, with no respite.  I will be updating my exclusive Retail Sector Activity Index in the follow up post (so stay tuned), but here are the core headlines:
  • The volume of retail sales index rose by 0.1% in October 2011 mom but is down 3.8% yoy. The volume of sales is now down 21.67% on peak. The index reading of 91.1 in October compares against 91.3 3mo AM and 92.1 6mo MA. In 2010 index average was 93.3 and 2011 to-date average is 92.0.
  • There was no change in the value of retail sales on a monthly basis, however the annual change was -3.7%. The value index is now 25.6% below its peak. 3mo MA is at 86.7 against current reading of 86.5 and 6mo MA is at 87.5. 2010 annual average is 88.8 against 2011 average to-date of 87.7.

Charts below illustrate:





Focusing on core sales (ex-Motors):
  • The volume of retail sales decreased by 0.2% in October 2011 mom, while there was an annual decrease of 3.6%. Core retail sales are now down 16.1% on the peak and 3mo MA is at 98.4 against October reading of 98.2, 6mo MA is at 98.8 and 2010 average is at 102.25 against 2011 average to-date of 99.5.
  • There was a monthly decrease of 0.1% in the value of core retail sales and an annual decrease of 2.8%, with the value index now 20.6% below the peak. 3mo MA is 94.3, against current October reading of 94.2, and 6mo MA is 94.7. 2010 annual average is 97.6 against 2011 average to-date of 95.5.
Charts below illustrate:



So we are now in month 49 of core retail sales below pre-crisis peaks in both value and volume terms and no sustained bounce in sight. One can only wonder how on earth we still have functioning retailers left.


In October, Books, Newspapers & Stationery (-2.8%), Department Stores (-1.9%) and Electrical Goods (-1.7%) were amongst the categories that showed month-on-month decreases in the volume of retail sales. But have a closer look: seasonally adjusted sales excluding motors, fuel, bars and food are down 1.0% mom and 6.6% yoy in value and down 0.8% mom and 5.3% yoy in volume. So, basically, everything we buy that cannot be substituted for purchases in the Northern Ireland (though motors and food can, with some caveats) has tanked.

And in case you wondered: here's a chart showing annual rates of change in volume of sales for Ireland v EU27 and EA17
Clearly, things are turning around...