Posted on 12/05/2012 9:48:16 AM PST by blam
ROSENBERG: One Of The Most Reliable Economic Indicators Peaked In July
Sam Ro
December 5, 2012
When the official headline economic indicators don't work, savvy investors turn to the unconventional economic indicators.
In his latest Breakfast With Dave note, David Rosenberg visits a signal being sent by the restaurant sector:
EATING OUT IS OUT
Our hedge fund desk has always told me that among the most reliable cyclical indicators for the American consumers is the restaurant sector. Traffic is slowing down precipitously and the companies are issuing negative guidance.
I took a look at the monthly details from the latest PCE data and saw that in nominal dollars, consumer spending on eating out sagged 0.4% in October and has contracted now in three of the past four months. The YoY trend peaked at +5.7% in July and has since slowed to +4.4% which is the softest pace in eight months (the three-month trend which a year ago was running at 7.5% at an annual rate is now close to stall-speed of 2%).
As a sign that families are becoming more cautious in their spending and eating habits, grocery shopping is up in two of the past three months and at double the trend (at4%) of the restaurant industry.
ECRI's Lakshman Achuthan has argued that the economy went into recession in mid-2012. This evidence seems to support that thesis.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
We eat out once on Friday evening and Sunday after church, otherwise we are eating at home or take our breakfast and lunch to work.
When we are in the restaurants crowds are really down except the weekend after the first of the month.
My Dad is a small business man and he is saying he hasn’t seen the economy and business this bad ever and he has been in business since 1958.
Hubby and I eat dinner out once a week. It is our only real ‘outing’ away from the house. I have found restaurants with specials like 2 for 1 certain nights of the week and I use Restaurant.com alot. They have some really great sales. Overall it costs us about $50 a mnth to eat out once a week. Well worth it.
What about second breakfast:)
What about second breakfast:)
...or Elevenses? I don’t think he knows about that, Pip.
Oh my, I don’t what to say. This might go down in the history of FR as the funniest proofreading error ever.
That is what she said...
Thank you for saying what I was thinking!!
Holy smokes....Damn Ipad. I go to lunch and come back to FR with pings and emails and a couple of voicemails on my phone with Freeper buddies laughing.
Anyways, I had the ABSOLUTELY necessary word "with" mistyped and instead of correcting the word, I guess I deleted it...creating a most embarrasing and (to you) entertaining situation. ....lets just hope my Freeper wife doesn't search my postings ;)
....and maybe the admin mods can insert the word "with" where it should be!
What is your wife's freeper name? Just kidding.
I blame the Ipad.
I am amazed at your multi-tasking abilities in this comment.
The missing words were just too good for me not to pile on.
I believe another Freeper classic has been born. We certainly needed a good laugh after the perfisdy of the DC crowd today—thanks.
Or not. Looks like the mods are erasing all signs of its existence. Only us lucky few will ever know...
Aren’t you a little worried eating at empty restaurants? I bet they’re serving days old food for their survival and your health could be at steak.
“I usually eat the same thing 7 days a week at Chili’s for dinner”
I would go bat crazy doing that. One time we had some Japanese customers over for a couple of weeks. The first day my manager told me to take them out for lunch. We went to a local place and I explained what chicken fired steak was. Well they all had chicken fried steak. They kept asking to go back day after day after day the same thing chicken fried steak.
After 9 days I was ready to never have chicken fried steak again. The last day I convinced them to go some place else. We talked about other items on the menu and every one seemed interested in this or that. Well when the waiter came the boss ordered chicken fried steak and then they all ordered CHICKEN FIRED STEAK.
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