Re: Spinning Black Friday Retail Sales

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Tobin Maginnis <ptm () pix cs olemiss edu>
Date: December 3, 2008 7:54:28 PM EST
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] Re:    Spinning Black Friday Retail Sales

Oops, I meant oil when I said gasoline. Fixed below.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) market basket does include
gasoline. http://www.bls.gov/cpi/cpifaq.htm#Question_6

But the question was how were the sales on *Black Friday*; not Cyber
Monday when Internet holiday sales begin.

Regardless, the price of gasoline is in deflation at the moment. I have
compared the spot price of oil and the average price of a gallon of
gasoline for the last eight years and noted an average "crack spread" of
3%. So as a rule-of-thumb one can multiply the spot price by 3% and see
what the price of a historic gallon of gasoline.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crack_spread

At the moment the spot price of oil is $47/barrel which should be
about $1.41/gal for gasoline. As usual, it seems easy for prices to  
rise, but they come down very slowly.

================================
David Farber wrote:
> Begin forwarded message:
> From: Esther Dyson <edyson () edventure com>
> Date: December 3, 2008 7:57:36 AM EST
> To: dave () farber net, "ip" <ip () v2 listbox com>
> Subject: Re: [IP] Re:   Spinning Black Friday Retail Sales
> Yes, but if those inflation numbers include the price of gas (which  
> is rarely bought online!), then the bias may be overstated as well.   
> In other words, always look your holiday gift horses in the mouth!   
> and don't jump to conclusions.
> Esther
> At 02:19 PM 12/2/2008, David Farber wrote:
> > Begin forwarded message:
> >
> > From: Tobin Maginnis <ptm () pix cs olemiss edu>
> > Date: December 2, 2008 10:05:47 AM EST
> > To: dave () farber net
> > Subject: Re: [IP] Spinning Black Friday Retail Sales
> >
> > Dave,
> >
> > Barry did not take inflation into consideration which more than
> > accounts for the difference! Using the 1980 BLS method, inflation for
> > the last year has averaged more than 11%! Therefore sales figures are
> > actually down 11%-7% or 4%!
> >
> >
> > From: http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/download_cpi? 
> > mode=text
> >               CPI-U           SGS-Alt
> >               Index   CPI-U   CPI-Equiv       SGS-Alt
> > Year    Month   1982/4=100      Yr/Yr % Index   Yr/Yr %
> > 2007    Oct     208.9   3.54%   551.9   11.07%
> > 2007    Nov     210.2   4.31%   556.3   11.75%
> > 2007    Dec     210.0   4.08%   564.5   11.73%
> > 2008    Jan     211.1   4.28%   572.2   11.80%
> > 2008    Feb     211.7   4.03%   582.4   11.56%
> > 2008    Mar     213.5   3.98%   589.3   11.58%
> > 2008    Apr     214.8   3.94%   593.5   11.53%
> > 2008    May     216.6   4.18%   599.6   11.82%
> > 2008    Jun     218.8   5.02%   612.3   12.59%
> > 2008    Jul     220.0   5.60%   617.8   13.36%
> > 2008    Aug     219.1   5.37%   617.5   13.22%
> > 2008    Sep     218.8   4.94%   619.0   12.86%
> > 2008    Oct     216.6   3.66%   616.1   11.63%
> >
> >
> > David Farber wrote:
> > > Begin forwarded message:
> > > From: dewayne () warpspeed com (Dewayne Hendricks)
> > > Date: December 1, 2008 11:18:20 PM EST
> > > To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <xyzzy () warpspeed com>
> > > Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Spinning Black Friday Retail Sales
> > > Spinning Black Friday Retail Sales
> > > Posted By Barry Ritholtz On December 1, 2008 @ 7:11 am
> > > <http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2008/12/spinning-black-friday-retail-sales/  
> > > >
> > > A few things you can count on every year around this time:
> > >  • Sales data for Black Friday will be touted by biased interest
> > > groups. They are invariably have an upside bias;
> > >  • Headline writers will get it wrong
> > >  • Survey data will be taken as the equivalent of actual sales;
> > >  • Strong forecasts will be subsequently proven wrong;
> > > Such is the current situation with the Black Friday sales data, with
> > > reports still trickling in from around the country.
> > > The WSJ goes for a hat trick of errors, starting with this article’s
> > > headline:
> > > • [1] Holiday Shopping Off to Strong Start
> > > What’s wrong with this? First, as opposed to actual sales data, they
> > > rely on a “survey of 3,370 shoppers, the National Retail Federation
> > > estimated shoppers spent an average of $372.57 over the weekend, up
> > > 7.2% over last year’s $347.55.” The National Retail Federation is
> > > hardly the objective group you want crafting (or hiring 3rd parties
> > > to create)  survey questions; 2nd, we know that humans are terrible
> > > at forecasting their own behaviors. Historically, their projections
> > > have had little correlation with their actual spending patterns. And
> > > third, the headline is belied by the details contained in the
> > > article. ([2] MarketWatch was no better)
> > > [snip]RSS Feed: <http://www.warpspeed.com/wordpress>
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> >
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> Esther Dyson              Always make new mistakes!
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