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A Retail Surprise? Not at ChangeWave

February 17, 2009

The January U.S. retail numbers surprised many on Wall Street when they were released last week.

As reported by MarketWatch, "Retail sales rose 1% on a seasonally adjusted basis last month, marking the first increase since June.

"The gain was unexpected, with economists surveyed by MarketWatch looking for a decline of 0.4%."

While the January numbers may have caught Wall Street by surprise, it was old news to ChangeWave Research. A month ago we reported "the first tiny spending uptick in eight months."

At the time we wrote, "The combination of a new year, a new presidential administration and lower inflation are likely contributors to the stabilization seen in the latest ChangeWave survey."

However, we also cautioned, "Don't break out the champagne just yet. The overall spending environment remains fiercely negative, and this momentary improvement may prove to be short-lived."

As last month's report concluded, "The big question going forward is whether these trends will continue in the aftermath of Obama's inauguration, or if this is simply a short-term blip. We'll know more next month when our February survey results are in."

Well, it's February, and our latest consumer survey results are in -- and they aren't pretty.

Stay tuned. We'll have the complete results soon.

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The ChangeWave Alliance Research Network is a group of 20,000 highly qualified business, technology and medical professionals -- as well as early adopter consumers -- who work in leading companies of select industries. ChangeWave surveys its network members weekly on a range of business and consumer topics, and converts the information into a series of proprietary quantitative and qualitative reports.