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Uptick in troubled office-building sales indicates more owners believe weak demand is here to stay ... Property owners are starting to unload troubled office buildings at fire-sale prices, a sign that the office market slump is moving into a new phase where more landlords are ready to capitulate. In recent weeks, Blackstone sold the Griffin Towers office complex in Santa Ana for $82 million, or about 36% less than the firm paid in 2014 ... Principal Financial Group sold a Parsippany, N.J., office building for $14.3 million, down from the $52 million it paid in 2008 .... The tower at...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. retail sales increased less than expected in April, but the underlying trend was solid, suggesting that consumer spending likely remained strong early in the second quarter, despite growing risks of a recession this year. Retail sales rose 0.4% last month, the Commerce Department said on Tuesday. Data for March was revised slightly lower to show sales dropping 0.7% instead of 0.6% as previously reported. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast sales rebounding 0.8%. Retail sales are mostly goods, which are typically bought on credit, and are not adjusted for inflation. Food services and drinking places are...

Spending at retail stores fell in December by the most in a year as consumer demand cools in the face of stubbornly high inflation and rising interest rates. Retail sales, a measure of how much consumers spent on a number of everyday goods, including cars, food and gasoline, declined 1.1% in December, the Commerce Department said Thursday. Economists surveyed by Refinitiv expected sales to fall 0.8%.

Americans’ credit cards are taking a beating – as was evident in the plunge in the savings rate and the surge in revolving consumer credit – to enable them to keep the dream alive and spend beyond their means and that over-reach enabled them to increase retail sales spending by 0.5% MoM – as expected in March. Notably, the rise in retail sales year-over-year is decelerating dramatically (up only 6.9% YoY – the lowest since Feb 2021)…Source: BloombergThe relative weakness was driven by a huge drop in non-store retailer sales (online) MoM leaving sales up just 1.8% YoY.However, before everyone...

Retail sales in the U.S. declined sharply in December, indicating that the worst inflation in decades is hitting consumers harder than analysts expected. Total retail sales dropped 1.9 percent in December, typically a month of robust holiday shopping, Commerce Department data showed Friday. The figures are not adjusted for inflation, suggesting that price-adjusted purchases were even weaker. The Consumer Price Index rose 0.5 percent in December. The results were far worse than analysts expected. The median estimate by analysts was for sales to be flat to down just one-tenth of a percentage point. Retail sales were better than expected in...

Americans, beset by product shortages, rising prices and the arrival of omicron, sharply cut their spending in December after a burst of spending in the fall that helped bolster the holiday season Retail sales fell a seasonally adjusted 1.9% in December compared with the previous month when sales increased 0.3%, the U.S. Commerce Department said Friday. Sales at department stores fell 7%. restaurant sales slipped 0.8% and online sales fell 8.7%. Omicron was identified by the World Health Organization in late November, and the December report from the Commerce Department is the first to capture some of its effect on...

V-shaped recovery, here we come? Maaayyybeee, but there is no doubt that today’s advance retail numbers for May show reason for hope. Even while a number of states still enforced lockdowns and restrictions on retail and food service establishments, the Census Bureau announced today that May’s numbers made up all the lost ground in April — and then some.Donald Trump wasted little time taking a victory lap on Twitter over the new numbers: Wow! May retail sales show biggest one-month increase of ALL TIME, up 17.7%. Far bigger than projected. Looks like a BIG DAY FOR THE STOCK MARKET,...

Retail sales rebounded in May as states eased coronavirus-induced lockdown measures, allowing retail stores to regain more ground than analysts expected, according to Department of Commerce data. Retail sales jumped 17.7% in May, effectively doubling expectations and marking the biggest single-month gain in records going back more than 20 years, according to a Commerce Department report released Tuesday. A Bloomberg News survey of economists had anticipated 8.4% increase in retail sales in May as COVID-19-related measures melted away following a 14% decline in April. COVID-19 originated in Wuhan, China, in late December before going global, killing a reported 116,000 people...

U.S. retail sales surged the most on record last month, the Commerce Department said Tuesday, as millions of Americans returned to work following weeks of coronavirus-triggered lockdowns that shuttered the world's largest economy. Retail sales rose 17.7% in May, the Commerce Department said, well ahead of the 8% forecast and well ahead of the downwardly-revised April reading of -14.7%. The so-called retail control reading, which strips out volatile auto, gas, building material and food services sales, was marked 11% higher in May, more than double the Street consensus forecast. The gains mimic those seen in last month's payroll report, which...

April retail sales sank by 16.4 percent to their lowest level on record, as stores and restaurants felt the full weight of a month of coronavirus closures. The monthly sales data, which measures spending at places such as gas stations, restaurants, bars, and stores, was released Friday by the U.S. Bureau of the Census. The number was worse than economists had been anticipating, with most having forecast a 12 percent drop. By comparison, March sales were down by 8.3 percent, which was at that time the worst decline since records began in 1992.

U.S. retail sales suffered a record drop in March as mandatory business closures to control the spread of the novel coronavirus outbreak depressed demand for a range of goods, setting up consumer spending for its worst decline in decades. The report from the Commerce Department on Wednesday came as millions of Americans have been thrown out of work, and strengthened economists' conviction that the economy is in deep recession. States and local governments have issued "stay-at-home" or "shelter-in-place" orders affecting more than 90% of Americans to curb the spread of COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the virus, and abruptly...

Like a centrally directed disinformation campaign. Here’s what happened. And it was everywhere. Misleading headlines about retail sales, from which reporters then extrapolated silly conclusions about the consumer while clamoring for a rate cut from the Fed. [Media reported] “U.S. retail sales unexpectedly posted the first decline in seven months, suggesting consumers are starting to become shaky as the main pillar of economic growth and potentially bolstering the case for a third straight Federal Reserve interest-rate cut.” The Commerce Department released its “Advance Estimates of U.S. Retail and Food Services” this morning. This is the first estimate for the month...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. retail sales fell for the first time in seven months in September, suggesting that manufacturing-led weakness could be spreading to the broader economy, keeping the door open for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates again later this month.

U.S. retail sales rose at a faster-than-estimated pace last month, data indicated Tuesday, showing that consumers remain sanguine enough to maintain spending despite investor concern that the economy might be slowing. Retail sales rose by 0.4% in June, the Commerce Department said in a statement, the four consecutive monthly gain. Economists had estimated a 0.1% gain during the month as the impact of newly-applied tariffs on China-made goods heading into the United States took hold. Retails sales excluding motor vehicles and parts, which can swing significantly from month to month, were also up by 0.4% on the month, higher than...

Shoppers delivered the strongest holiday sales increase for U.S. retailers in six years, according to early data. Total U.S. retail sales, excluding automobiles, rose 5.1% between Nov. 1 and Dec. 24 from a year earlier, according to Mastercard SpendingPulse, which tracks both online and in-store spending with all forms of payment. The figures suggest a stock-market swoon and partial government shutdown haven’t curbed consumer confidence and spending. “Wall Street is running around like a chicken with its head cut off, while Mr. and Mrs. Main Street are happy with their jobs, enjoying their best wage increases in a decade,” said...

Americans tapered off from shopping toward the end of the holiday season, while lower gasoline prices cut into overall retail sales in December. The Commerce Department said Friday that retail sales dipped a seasonally adjusted 0.1 percent last month to $448.1 billion after having climbed a solid 0.4 percent in November. The report shows consumer tastes shifting toward restaurants and online shopping. The extra savings from falling gas costs have yet to boost spending much in other retail categories. Sales fell in December at clothing, electronics outlets and general merchandise stores. But those declines were largely offset by spending at...

Sam Ro4-5-2015 Since the beginning of the year, the pace of growth in numerous US economic indicators deteriorated significantly, so much so that many of these metrics even fell short of economists' expectations. Weirdly, the pace of jobs growth had been resilient even amid unexpected plunges in key measures like retail sales and durable goods orders, reports which reflected weakness in both consumers and businesses. However, this weirdness has begun to work itself out. On Friday, we learned the US economy added just 126,000 jobs in March, missing expectations for 245,000 new jobs. You have to go all the way...

Sales at U.S. retailers fell in February for the third month in a row, as most stores fared poorly with the notable exception of gasoline stations. Retail sales, which account for about one-third of consumer spending, fell 0.6% last month, following even larger declines in January and December, the government reported Thursday. Economists polled by MarketWatch had expected a 0.3% gain. Poor weather was almost certainly a factor. A series of snow storms wracked the eastern half of the country in February, making it harder for Americans to move around. Sales even sank 0.6% at restaurants and bars, marking the...

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Stock markets opened deep in the red on Wednesday after retail sales in December dropped at a faster-than-expected pace. Headline retail sales dropped 0.9% last month, reflecting the steep decline in gas prices, but far deeper than expectations for a 0.1% drop. Core sales, excluding volatile items such as gas and automobiles, dropped 0.3%. Forecasts were for an increase of 0.5%. The weak consumer spending data upset markets after the World Bank singled the U.S. economy as one of the few chugging along and dragging global growth higher.

Ed Yardeni, Dr. Ed's BlogAugust 4, 2014 Yardeni chart Aug 4, Dr. Ed's Blog The US economy appears on my worry list only indirectly and only because it is performing well, showing no signs of a recession. That’s bearish only if the Fed’s response of starting to raise interest rates in baby steps triggers an unanticipated financial crisis simply because interest rates have been too close to zero for too long. A rush out of corporate bond funds could be one of the consequences with recessionary consequences, or maybe not. It’s something to watch. For now, let the good times...