Economy Watch: Sales, Gas, Jobs, And Mortgages

Retail Sales Up
The International Council of Shopping Centers and Goldman Sachs reported its chain-store sales index for the week ending on June 4, 2011 rose 0.4%.

Shoppertrak Retail Sales
For the week ended June 4, 2011, ShopperTrak's National Retail Sales Estimate was $95.335 billion, down 1.2% from last week's $96.432 billion, but up 4.4% from the same week last year. As expected, post-Memorial Day shopping tapered off, but sales for the week before Father's Day (June 19) are expected to rise.

Gas Prices Drop
The Energy Department announced that for week ending June 6, 2011, the average price of US gasoline fell to $3.781 a gallon, down from $3.794 per gallon week earlier.

Diesel prices fell to an average $3.95 per gallon, down from $4.00 last week, the fourth consecutive weekly drop.

Shopping Center Jobs Decline
The ICSC benchmark for US shopping center industry jobs -- based on US Labor Department statistics -- showed a decline of 17,900 jobs in May following a large 51,500 increase in April. The average shopping-center industry jobs gain per month durng the five months of 2011 has been 10,600 jobs per month.

Mortgage Rates Drop Yet Again
Bankrate.com reported that the average conforming 30-year fixed mortgage rate fell to 4.69%, down from last week's 4.75%, according to its weekly national survey ending June 1, 2011. It also reported that the average 15-year fixed mortgage rate was 3.88%, down from 3.93% last week.