Did you know consumer confidence is at a 7 year high? Consumers have celebrated their supposed confidence by not spending money for the last two months. A critical thinking human being might ask how can an economy growing at 4% GDP, with a 5.7% unemployment rate (supposedly meaning 94.3% of people who want jobs have them), and extremely confident consumers could see retail sales have the biggest two month drop since the dreadful recession year of 2009. Luckily, there are no critical thinking human beings working in the corporate MSM and very few wandering the streets of America.
The month over month declines are dreadful as it is, especially in the discretionary spending areas. Auto sales have fallen two months in a row. Maybe they have given a subprime loan to everyone left in the country. Furniture sales plunged in January. That always happen during a housing recovery. Right? Sales at sporting goods, book, & music stores cratered for the 2nd month in a row. Department store sales crashed for the 2nd month in a row. Bye Bye JC Penney and Sears. Even online sales barely budged over the two month period. Amazon surely deserves a $200 stock price. Right?
It’s actually much worse than even the talking heads on CNBC will admit. Listen closely to see if they discuss the fact last December and January were during the dreaded Polar Vortex. Remember the paralyzing snows and cold weather. That was the excuse for shitty retail sales last year. This December and January, except for New England, have been a walk in the park. Relatively mild temperatures and not too much snow for most of the nation. The comparisons should have been a piece of cake. Instead, retail sales were only up 3.3% over last year. Considering inflation, according to the BLS, has been 1.7%, that means real retail sales only grew by 1.6% versus the dreadful POLAR VORTEX depressed sales from last year. And this is with a plunge in the unemployment rate and the skyrocketing consumer confidence. Does this chart scream recovery?
Let’s face it. The global economy is plunging into recession and the U.S. is going along for the ride. What do the boneheads on CNBC think is going to happen when real median household income is at 1989 levels? The reason retail sales have fallen the most since 2009 is because wages are stagnant, Obamacare costs are skyrocketing, local and state taxes & fees are increasing dramatically, and the cost of food is rising. Welcome to the Greater Depression.
Avon Products reports wider loss, sales decline
By Tomi Kilgore
Published: Feb 12, 2015 7:21 a.m. ET
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Avon Products Inc. AVP, +0.52% reported on Thursday a fourth-quarter net loss that widened to $330.7 million, or 75 cents a share, from $69.1 million, or 16 cents a share, in the year-earlier period. The beauty products company said non-recurring items, such as a charge resulting from lower projected foreign course income, reduced earnings during the period by 95 cents a share. In addition, the negative effect of currency moves had a 22 cents-a-share impact on earnings. Revenue fell 12% to $2.34 billion from $2.67 billion.
Kellogg cuts long-term targets, swings to loss
By Tess Stynes
Published: Feb 12, 2015 8:51 a.m. ET
Kellogg Co. on Thursday lowered its long-term growth targets as the cereal maker swung to a loss for the fourth quarter.
Shares fell 3.5% to $64 in recent premarket trading as revenue and earnings excluding a big charge missed Wall Street expectations.
Kellogg said it now projects long-term annual revenue growth of 1% to 3%, excluding some items, compared with its previous view of 3% to 4%.
The maker of Frosted Flakes and Pop-Tarts reported a fourth-quarter loss of $293 million, or 82 cents a share, compared with a year-earlier profit of $818 million, or $2.24 a share. Excluding a large mark-to-market adjustment related to Kellogg’s pension plans and other items, earnings were 84 cents a share.
Net sales edged up 0.3% to $3.51 billion. Excluding items such as currency fluctuations, sales fell 2%.
Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected a per-share profit of 93 cents and revenue of $3.65 billion.
For 2015, Kellogg expects comparable net sales will be flat and that its operating profit will decline between 2% and 4%, including a negative impact of three to four percentage points from changes in its incentive-based compensation plan for 2015. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected per-share profit of $4.01 and a revenue decline of 2% to $14.43 billion.
2015-02-12 09:12 by Karl Denninger
Retail Sales: SUCKS
Ok, now this is a pretty nasty report…
The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for January, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $439.8 billion, a decrease of 0.8 percent (±0.5%) from the previous month, but up 3.3 percent (±0.9%) above January 2014. Total sales for the November 2014 through January 2015 period were up 3.8 percent (±0.7%) from the same period a year ago. The November to December 2014 percent change was unrevised from -0.9 percent (±0.3%).
Yuck.
What’s worse is the unadjusted numbers. Keep in mind that there’s this holiday called Christmas in December, but….
Retail, total, was down about 24% unadjusted. But what’s worse is the lie in the above caption — previous-year comparisons. The unadjusted January figures were up only 2.85% from January 2014, and if you exclude cars it was only up 1.41%.
You don’t need a seasonal adjustment for the same month in different years!
There was one bright light — gasoline, which was down big (24%). But the claim that this drop in gas price would translate inexorably to other purchases appears to be flat-out wrong. Instead, consumers are paying down debt and reducing their leverage — except on cars.
One final interesting point — non-store retailers were only up 2.57% from last January. It appears that the “internet shopping craze” has finished its large growth numbers; this has an interesting set of implications for everyone selling and marketing on the Internet, particularly Spamazon.
PS: People are getting drunk more — to the tune of 13.1% more over last January. Gee, I wonder if the lies are finally getting to ordinary folks……
It’s nothing a war couldn’t fix. Lots of broken windows, increased demand, more spending. Everything the Keynesians could possibly want! Tens of thousands of brown people dead and millions displaced is a small price to pay for a bump in GDP.
Thought you should see this: “…the head of one of the country’s premier polling services just made a startling statement for simply being honest about the Obama Administration’s employment numbers.
Specifically, he is afraid that he could “suddenly disappear” for telling what he believes is the truth — that the administration is dramatically fudging its unemployment figures in a bid to make the president look better.”
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/048590_unemployment_rate_Gallup_CEO_government_statistics.html#ixzz3RYC1buDt
Gloom and doom on TBP is dead. The government prove growth and recovery every month. What do you believe government statistics or your lying eyes?
I bought a new electric hammer to chip ice off my roof so I’m doing my part. I’m sure all this snow is doing wonders for February retail sales. I know a lot of trucking companies that are happy moving snow from one spot to another. Did you know it was illegal to dump snow into the ocean, unless you get permission from the EPA. So what do they do, they truck it for miles to dump it into an open space. HAHAHA fucking idiots, of course we have to pay for this idiocy.
Bob.
The past 6 weeks has been the deadest period for our biz since inception 13 years ago. By dead, I mean 1 new order in the past 6 weeks. Even in this shit economy we would usually have 3 or 4 new orders in any 6 week period. From what we’re seeing, people are just dead broke.
People are dumping their pets in our neighborhood, again. Must be a sign of improvement.
Also, apparently people being paid minimum wage at their part time, zero-benefit McJob, aren’t buying much made-in-China consumer crap. Film at eleven, now to Tiffany with the weather.
It was sarcasm people, sarcasm.
And yet people still want to ignore the data and tout “stories” like this — even after you point out that it’s an Op-Ed from a Morgan Stanley investment banker. Stronger dollar? maybe for a few months as the flight-to-safety from Europe takes place, but then look out. Falling oil prices? Yeah, we’ve already covered that. Rebalancing the economy in favor of the little guy??? THAT is laughable.
WSJ: The Middle-Class Comeback Is Under Way
http://www.wsj.com/article_email/ruchir-sharma-the-middle-class-comeback-is-under-way-1423785514-lMyQjAxMTA1NjEyMzQxMzMzWj
Blogger wrote-I
Good old Eric did his version of an HSBC swindle on this side of the Atlantic with Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan Chase.The posse was closing in on Chase when Holder jumped into the fray & gave Chase a $13 billion fine for funny business in the equities market before the market crash of 2008.This settlement was done by way of Memos & vague written statements,no one was prosecuted for their evil deeds,Dimon & his insider pals took raises & celebrated not needing to go to Jail
And intrepid Eric? he resigned his post as AG of the U.S.A. to become an employee of that same Chase Bank he so diligently hounded for their illegal behavior.And all he going to earn is a mere $77million per year….This is just one of many of the house of cards