Tuesday, November 29, 2011

29/11/2011: Retail Sector Activity Index: October 2011, Ireland

In the previous post I detailed the latests retail sales stats for Ireland. Here, I am updating my own Index of Retail Sector Activity - a weighted average of value of sales, volume of slaes and leading consumer confidence indicator. The index reflects changes in employment and profit margins conditions in the sector.

Table below summarizes the changes in all three components, and charts below illustrate:



A large jump ion 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).

As charts below show, RSAI still remains consistent with actual retail sales volume and value performance at below the levels consistent with medium-term consumer confidence reading:




No comments: