Thursday, November 6, 2008

Retail Sales

Are bad. How could they not be?

Relatively famous retail analyst Dana Telsey, who runs her own shop now (fabulous exit from Bear Searns btw), was on CNBC last night and again 10 minutes ago opining that November will be the worst month of this trough for retail, although she allowed that there will be no recovery to speak of for 6 months.

Since hope is sill not a strategy, it would be very reckless to make investment decisions based on the premise of retail, or any portion of the consumer-facing economy bottoming this month. Unemployment rates are going higher. 10% is not out of the question. The Tri-State area knows that Wall Street bonuses are going to be at a multi-decade low, but we've never seen that before. The auto industry could lose a million jobs. Oil could go back to $145.

We'll know where there is once we get past it.

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