Good morning. Retailers for the most part were all well above expectations but many did comment that the record snow cost them 1% to 2% in lost sales. Bottom line, they overcame 9 major hurdles but they were up against the easiest February comp ever last year which was -4.3% so the +3.7% gain captured most but not all of last year’s huge losses. The expectations for March have been set very low at +2.5% by Wall Street but with the first major Spring surge of warm weather late month around Easter, retailers are poised for a blow out month with exceptional sales gains well above expectations. Why? Because they’ve had two back-to-back really bad March sales in 2008 = -2.3% and last year -5.1% due in large part to cold/snowy weather around Easter the past two years. Net-net we missed this one but Wall Street was surprised by the prior 2 strong months so we’re still up on the street!

Bill

Good morning. We are not tracking retail food and services sales but rather the International Council of Shopping Centers tally of 70 major broadline retailers that include the likes of Kohl’s, Target, Saks, CVS, Nordstorm’s, etc. Broadline retailers if you will which does not include auto, grocery, etc. ICSC actually revised their December number up to +3.6% which was the best performance/gains since November 2007. Hope this helps.

Bill

The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for December, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $353.0 billion, a decrease of 0.3 percent (±0.5%)* from the previous month, but 5.4 percent (±0.5%) above December 2008.

I may be missing something but I am trying to reconcile the +2.6% WTI projection with the Census report. Any clarification would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Charlie