Retail Sales Stay Flat, Trump Organization Case Heads to Trial, Mortgage Applications Decline & More Latest News Here – Up Jobs

U.S. retail sales were flat compared to month-earlier levels in July, reaching $682.8 billion as consumers remained cautious about their spending amid lingering inflation, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday.

The numbers, which include spending on food services outside the home, showed a 10.1% rise from the year earlier. While consumers have seen relief in the past few weeks in the form of falling gasoline prices, last month’s spending at gas stations was still up 39.9% from July 2021.

Gas station outlays are up 40.6% for the first seven months of 2022. After that, the biggest year-over-year spending increases for the January-July period were seen at clothing and accessory stores, up 8.7%, with spending at food and beverage stores rising 7.8% and 6.3% at building material and supply stores. Spending was down 4.9% at electronics and appliance stores.

Most major U.S. big-box retailers are now reporting lower earnings or cutting future profit projections in the face of rising supply, labor and other costs associated with merchandise recalibrations and price markdowns on slow-selling items. Wall Street initially reacted to declining profits this week by sending Target’s share price down sharply, though Walmart and Home Depot showed signs of a stock rebound after posting encouraging if not stellar earnings reports.

Real estate impacts are yet to be seen. Retail analyst Patrick McKeever, founder of news and research site The Daily on Retail, reported last week that announcements of planned chain store openings in the first half of 2022 totaled 5,080 — similar to the same period of 2021. Closing announcements, at 895, were down 63% from the year-earlier period.

“As has been the case for some time now, opening announcements have been concentrated in the discount/dollar and off-price sectors, which can be less vulnerable to online competition and less translatable to e-commerce than other areas of retail,” McKeever said in an Aug. 11 blog post on the National Retail Federation trade group website.

The New York Supreme Court has a set late October trial date after denying a request by the Trump Organization to dismiss a criminal indictment alleging tax fraud by former President Donald Trump’s real estate company and its former chief financial officer.

Justice Juan Merchan set jury selection for Oct. 24 after state prosecutors alleged the New York-based Trump Organization and its longtime CFO, Allen Weisselberg, conspired to avoid paying taxes by diverting portions of some executives’ compensation to perks such as cars, apartments and cash payments. Defendants have denied the charges.

The former president was not charged in the case, though the Trump Organization sought to have the indictment dismissed on grounds that it was politically motivated and did not belong in a state court since it involved federal tax allegations. The judge did dismiss one count of tax fraud after prosecutors agreed the alleged conduct happened too long ago to be included in the current case.

The tax-fraud case was spun off from a larger ongoing probe by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office regarding the Trump Organization’s alleged misrepresentation of its assets to tax authorities, banks and insurers. Trump and his company have denied wrongdoing there as well.

The former president last week invoked his Fifth Amendment right to refuse to answer questions in a separate investigation by the New York Attorney General’s Office regarding Trump Organization business practices. Earlier this month, the FBI raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago compound in Florida as part of a federal probe into classified documents allegedly taken from the White House to the residential property.

Mortgage applications declined 2.3% from the prior week for the period that ended Aug. 12 and hit a two-decade low, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported Wednesday.

The group said the weekly gauge of application volume, which does not specify application quantities or dollar volumes, showed refinancing applications rising 5% from the previous week but dropping 82% from the comparable week of 2021. Purchase applications declined 2% from the prior week and were down 18% from the year-earlier period, as overall application activity hit its lowest level since 2000.

“Home purchase applications continued to be held down by rapidly drying up demand, as high mortgage rates, challenging affordability and a gloomier outlook of the economy kept buyers on the sidelines,” Joel Kan, the group’s associate vice president of economic and industry forecasting, said in a statement.

Applications were down even as interest rates for 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages averaged 5.45%, down from 5.47% in the prior week, the group reported. The average fixed rate for 15-year loans was 4.87%, up from 4.74% in the prior week. Most current loan rates remain well above year-ago levels.

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