Retail Sales

Spending is slowing - but so is inflation, offering the Federal Reserve more room to stimulate the economy by lowering interest rates next month, if it wants. Retail sales softened in October, rising 0.2 percent after a 0.7 percent gain in the previous month, the Commerce Department said yesterday. The report underscored analysts' expectations that consumers will be more reluctant to spend freely over the holiday season. It was the smallest sales gain since a 0.1 percent rise in August.

The Rouse Co. reported yesterday that vibrant retail sales helped its second-quarter earnings to leap 20 percent from the corresponding period a year earlier, to $55.6 million.The Columbia-based real estate investment trust's funds from operations of 70 cents per share, a 13 percent gain from the 1998 quarter, topped Wall Street consensus estimates by 2 cents a share.Rouse's revenue in the quarter totaled $249.8 million, a 13 percent gain from the period that ended June 30 a year earlier.

Retailers are expected to continue pushing their way into Maryland and the Baltimore market in 1999, mostly filling gaps, but shoppers could well see some of the more established chains close their doors for good."

Strong consumer spending in April boosted retail sales above expectations at the nation's biggest chain stores, despite an Easter holiday that fell in March this year.Spring apparel and home goods led the way for average sales to rise above the 3 percent analysts had predicted.But some major chains, notably Target and Sears, Roebuck and Co., reported lower sales.Specialty stores such as AnnTaylor Stores Corp., Limited Inc. and Talbots fared especially well, which the chains said should lead to better-than-expected first-quarter earnings, to be released later this month.

WASHINGTON -- U.S. consumer prices rose in 1998 at their slowest pace in 12 years and retail sales surged in December, capping a year in which rising wages allowed consumer spending to increase at its fastest pace since 1984 and energized the economy's longest peacetime expansion.The consumer price index rose 1.6 percent last year, less than 1997's 1.7 percent increase and the lowest annual inflation rate since 1986, the Labor Department reported yesterday. In December, prices rose only 0.1 percent as declines in gasoline and home heating oil prices offset higher cigarette prices.

WASHINGTON -- U.S. consumers spent freely in the first six weeks of the year, offering more evidence the economy is growing faster than Federal Reserve policymakers and other analysts expect, figures released yesterday showed.Retail sales grew 0.5 percent in early February, following a revised 1.0 percent increase in January -- 10 times the increase initially reported. "It certainly will raise questions about whether it's realistic for the Fed to assume the economy will slow much because of Asia," said Michael Englund, chief economist at Standard & Poor's MMS in Belmont, Calif.

WASHINGTON -- The crisis in Asia is applying the brakes to U.S. growth and putting pressure on manufacturers and retailers to hold down prices, the Federal Reserve said yesterday in its latest reading on the economy.The Fed said retail sales in recent weeks fueled further economic expansion but that "labor shortages, shipping bottlenecks and continued weakness in East Asia were beginning to temper growth." That contrasts with the Fed's previous regional outlook report in mid-June, when it described the United States as enjoying an "excellent" combination of continued growth and low inflation.

In a sign that consumer spending may be slowing after a yearlong shopping spree, retail sales in August grew at a slower pace than in previous months.Sales for the month, reported yesterday by the nation's largest retailers, either fell below the previous year's August sales or posted gains but failed to meet expectations.Sales rose 3.95 percent in August from the same month a year earlier, according to the Bloomberg Composite Same-Store Sales Index of 23 retailers. The index had shown a 5.52 percent gain in July.

Consumers went shopping at specialty stores and discounters in October, handing a blow to department store chains that have been losing customers.Reports on October sales from the nation's biggest retailers yesterday showed mixed results, amid concerns over Wall Street volatility and signs of an economic slowdown."

If anything, last year's rosy economy should have kept the registers ringing from malls to outlets to discount centers. But consumers had other ideas, putting money into savings, for one, or ferociously hunting bargains.Sales in Maryland stores merely inched up in 1997, reflecting national figures and leaving retailers fighting harder for every dollar. This year, little is expected to change."Retailing's just lackluster," said Mark Millman, president of Lutherville-based Millman Search Group, a retail consulting firm.

Republic wins bid for Frontier, beats Southwest Republic Airways Holdings says it won the bankruptcy court auction for Frontier Airlines, buying the Denver-based carrier for almost $108.8 million. Southwest Airlines Co. said its $170 million bid was deemed unacceptable because the carrier would not back down from a requirement that its pilots and Frontier's work out their integration before the deal would close. That was a non-issue for Republic, which has said it plans to keep operating Frontier as a stand-alone carrier.

Weary consumers kept their wallets tightly shut in July and the trend looks as if it might continue through the back-to-school season, a time when retailers normally see a boost from parents getting their kids ready for the new school year. Retail sales fell 5 percent as shoppers continued to worry about their jobs and spent more cautiously because of the recession, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers. Shoppers also had nothing to entice them to spend because there were fewer sales.

The worst may be over for the nation's retailers after months of distress. But experts say that merchants will still be stuck in neutral for several months. Retail sales at major chain stores in March fell 2.1 percent compared with the corresponding period in 2008, the International Council of Shopping Centers said Thursday. The majority of the 33 chains surveyed - including Macy's Inc., Saks Inc. and Costco Wholesale Corp. - reported sales declines, with several apparel and upscale retailers again posting double-digit drops.

The U.S. economy started the new year on weaker footing as recession-shocked Americans retrenched further, forcing retailers to ring up fewer sales and factories to cut back production. The Federal Reserve's new snapshot of business conditions nationwide widely known as its Beige Book, released yesterday, suggested the country's economic picture has darkened during the past two months. The outlook appears equally dim. "Overall economic activity continued to weaken across almost all of the Federal Reserve's districts," the report concluded.

Retailers slashed prices the day after Christmas as much as 60 to 80 percent and extended hours to attract customers, but it appears their efforts will not be enough to salvage a dismal holiday shopping season. Early figures indicated a drop of as much as 8 percent in holiday spending this year, and retail observers reported lackluster crowds yesterday at malls and big box stores nationwide. "Everybody was saying it's going to be the second Black Friday," said Shavoune Desper of Laurel, who was shopping at Arundel Mills mall with her aunt Yolanda Townsend and several nieces and nephews.

NEW YORK - The stock market endured its second thrashing in two days yesterday, as dismal retail sales raised concern that a global recession could be longer and deeper than thought likely even a few weeks ago. The Dow Jones industrial average sagged almost 450 points in a virtual replay of Tuesday's 486-point drop, and investors braced for potentially more losses today when the government releases its closely watched monthly unemployment report....

The sell-off on Wall Street intensified yesterday, sending the Dow Jones industrial average down more than 700 points after grim retail-sales data stoked fears that a punishing recession may be looming - if not already under way. The 8 percent plunge pushed the Dow back below the 9,000 level and erased most of the remaining gains from Monday's torrid 936-point rally. A government report that retail sales slumped 1.2 percent in September - far worse than the 0.7 percent that economists had expected - provided the spark for the sell-off.

Spending is slowing - but so is inflation, offering the Federal Reserve more room to stimulate the economy by lowering interest rates next month, if it wants. Retail sales softened in October, rising 0.2 percent after a 0.7 percent gain in the previous month, the Commerce Department said yesterday. The report underscored analysts' expectations that consumers will be more reluctant to spend freely over the holiday season. It was the smallest sales gain since a 0.1 percent rise in August.

PARAMUS, N.J. -- It is fitting that the first store drivers see as they head south on Route 17 and enter town is a Stop & Shop. After all, Paramus is one of the nation's strongest shopping magnets, generating roughly $5 billion a year in retail sales, an amount about equal to the gross domestic product of Cambodia, Nicaragua or the sultanate of Brunei. There are larger malls and there are fancier malls elsewhere, but few places rival the sheer concentration of stores in this otherwise unremarkable suburb 18 miles northwest of Times Square.

NEW YORK -- Retail sales growth in the week after Thanksgiving fell to 3.1 percent, the slowest rate in four years, as consumers delayed holiday purchases to wait for discounts. A longer shopping period between Thanksgiving and Christmas contributed to consumers' delays, the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) and UBS Securities LLC said yesterday. Their survey showed that 25 percent of shoppers finished most of their purchases by Sunday, down from 32 percent the previous two years.