A retail tide turning?
According to one interpretation of the most recent U.S. Census Bureau retail sales report, October marked an important turnaround for home centers and hardware stores.
Unadjusted preliminary sales for building materials and garden equipment and supplies dealers (NAICS 444) showed preliminary October sales of $23.265 billion, up from $23.208 billion in September. Also, hardware stores (NAICS 44413), improved in October to $1.494 billion, up from $1.406 billion.
Before October, the figures were riding a five-month downward trend. October marked the first increase for both hardware stores and home centers since May 2009.
But not all the news was positive from the Census Bureau report. Adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading day differences, the bureau's advance estimate for November in NAICS 444 showed building material and garden equipment and supplies dealers were down 9.3% from November 2008, but up 1.5% from October 2009.
The bureau does not offer an advance estimate for NAICS classification for hardware stores, 44413.
Looking at the bigger economic picture, the bureau announced that advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for November, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $352.1 billion, an increase of 1.3 percent from the previous month and an increase of 1.9 percent above November 2008.
The numbers came out shortly before the White House announced an end to the recession. "Today, everybody agrees that the recession is over," White House economic advisor Larry Summers told ABC. "And the question is what the pace of the expansion is going to be."
