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Parsing Divergent Retail Sales and Housing Starts Data

The March retail sales number generally looked good, but the same can't be said for housing starts last month.
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Late last week we received some conflicting economic data in the form of the March Retail Sales report and the March Housing Starts data. While retail sales for the month came in stronger than expected -- a welcome sign following the last few months in which that data disappointed relative to expectations -- March housing starts fell to their weakest point since 2017 despite a tick down in mortgage rates. Now let’s take a deeper dive into those two reports: In looking at the March Retail Sales report, total retail rose 1.7% month over month (3.5% year over year) with broad-based sales strength and nice gains seen across discretionary spending categories. While we are quite pleased with the month’s data, subscribers know we tend to favor a longer-term perspective when it comes to identifying data trends. Consequently, as we are bracing for the March quarter earnings onslaught it makes sense to examine how retail sales in this year's March quarter compared to the year-ago quarter. Here we go:

Leaders for the March 2019 quarter vs. March 2018 quarter:

• Nonstore retailers were up more than 11%, which bodes very well for holders of Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) and other retailers such as Walmart Inc. (WMT) that are embracing digital commerce. Let’s remember that those packages need to get to their intended destinations, which likely means positive things for United Parcel Service (UPS) and similar companies.

• Food services & drinking places were up 4.4%, which is favorable for our Del Frisco’s Restaurant Group Inc. (DFRG) shares from a fundamental perspective. We continue to wait for the company to share progress and other developments related to its strategic review.

• Health & personal care stores were up 4.6%.

• Building material & garden suppliers and dealers rose 4.7%.

Laggards for the March 2019 quarter vs. March 2018 quarter:

• Sporting goods, hobby, musical instrument, & book stores were down 7.9%, which in our minds means continuing to avoid shares of Barnes & Noble Inc. (BKS) and Big 5 Sporting Goods Corp. (BGFV)

• Department Stores fell 3.8%, and that keeps us on the sidelines for companies such as J.C. Penney Co. (JCP) .

• Miscellaneous store retailers were down 3.8%.

Turning to the March Housing Starts report, the aggregate starts data fell to the weakest level since 2017, but that decline includes both single-family and multifamily housing starts. Breaking down those two components, single-family starts were down 0.4% to 781,000, the slowest pace since September 2016, while permits decreased 1.1% to 808,000, the lowest since August 2017. Multifamily starts, which include apartments and condominiums, were unchanged month over month at 354,000, while those permits fell 2.7%.

The March results may have been influenced to some degree by harsh weather in the Northeast, which contended with heavy snowfalls, and in the South as it dealt with record flooding along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. Even so, the housing data were off despite a decline in the 30-year mortgage rate to roughly 4.15% this month from 4.86% last October, according to data from Marcrotrends. This decline likely signals that consumers are being priced out of the market as developers and home builders continue to struggle with building affordable properties amid rising labor and materials costs. Generally speaking, most existing homeowners in the U.S. use the capital from selling their current homes to help fund the purchase of their next dwellings. This means we as investors should watch Existing Home Sales data as a precursor to new home sales and housing starts. Despite February’s better-than-expected sequential print, Existing Home Sales have been falling on a year-over-year basis since February 2018.

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This week, we’ll get the March Existing Homes Sales report and we’ll look to see if the February strength continues, and if so, what it could mean for the housing market in the coming months. The fact that Building Materials & Garden retail sales during the March 2019 quarter were robust could be a sign that homeowners were spiffing up their homes ahead of the spring housing selling season. It also could be that harsh winter weather during the quarter drove that retail strength, or that homeowners are doing repair and remodel jobs because they plan on staying in their current homes, or a combination of both.

We also must consider the state of the consumer, who is dealing with the impact of higher debt levels across credit cards, auto loans and student loans -- a combination that is sapping disposable income and the ability to service mortgages on homes they may not be able to afford.

Let’s see what the March Existing Home Sales report has to say. We then can chart our next move, if any, from there.

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