CARY, N.C. -

Experts at Cox Automotive, the National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions and S&P Global Ratings all tried to make sense of recent trends such as retail sales, unemployment, the pandemic and more.

What triggered much of the discussion arrived last week when the U.S. Census Bureau of Labor Statistics released retail data for August. NAFCU then conducted an analysis of the data and found that total retail sales jumped 0.7% in August following July’s downwardly revised fall.

Other findings from NAFCU’s data analysis included:

• Sales within the control group, excluding auto, gas and building material categories (the basis of the Commerce Department’s estimate of personal consumption expenditures), rose 2.1% in August

• Results in certain sectors were mixed during August, as non-store retailers led the way with a 5.3% rise while furniture stores rose 3.7%, and general merchandise stores saw a 3.5% rise

• The largest drops were in motor vehicles and parts dealers (down 3.6%), electronics stores (down 3.1 %), and sporting goods stores (down 2.7 %).

“Retail sales rose sharply in August even as auto sales continue to fall,” NAFCU chief economist and vice president of research Curt Long said in a news release. “Excluding autos, sales were up 1.8 percent on the month. Growth was driven by non-store retailers and general merchandisers — both sectors that saw a significant drop in July. Restaurant sales remain flat as grocery store sales rise, so the spread of the Delta variant is having an effect on the normalization of spending patterns for now. Consumers have also bought so many goods over the past 18 months of activity restrictions that goods demand in some categories is spent.”

“A bigger headwind is the shortage of new vehicles, as auto sales fell by 3.6 percent on the month,” Long continued. “The good news is that despite the growth of COVID cases during the summer, the reduction in fiscal stimulus, and the rotation from goods to services consumption, sales levels remain well above their pre-COVID trend. That momentum will be important moving forward, as reports suggest that shipping delays could impact the holiday shopping season. We could see some volatility ahead, but consumer confidence is strong and should be enough to maintain relatively stable growth over the near term.”

Meanwhile, Cox Automotive chief economist Jonathan Smoke isn’t quite as upbeat about consumer confidence based on the information that he discussed in a blog post shared on Monday.

Smoke pointed out that the initial September reading on consumer sentiment from the University of Michigan increased a “modest” 1% to 71.0 from 70.3 in August.

“The index remains near the pandemic low recorded last month, which was also the lowest in a decade,” Smoke said via the online report. “Consumers’ view of current conditions declined while future expectations improved. Consumers saw buying conditions for vehicles decline again to the lowest level registered by the survey back to 1978.

“The daily measure of consumer sentiment from Morning Consult has declined thus far in September. The index as of last Friday was down 0.4% over the last seven days, leaving it down 0.3% so far in September,” Smoke continued.

Smoke went on to mention that jobless claims are rise on the rise, too.

As of Sept. 4, Smoke noted that 2.665 million Americas remained on traditional unemployment benefits, which are limited to at most six months of coverage, but 12.1 million were on some form of unemployment benefit at the end of August including pandemic unemployment assistance, which provided coverage beyond six months.

Smoke then explained that the broadest measure of benefits has increased by 281,000 over the last four weeks “even as pandemic assistance was slated to end by Sept. 4.” He added that initial claims increased last week to 332,000 from an upwardly revised 312,000 the prior week, “which was a low for the pandemic.”

Smoke went on to say that, “Weekly initial claims remain elevated as they averaged 216,000 in the first 11 weeks of 2020 leading up to the pandemic. Continuing claims were 1.770 million before the pandemic began.”

So are trends moving more positively or negatively? The third group of experts offered this assessment.

According to a recently published S&P Global Ratings report, analysts there think current economic conditions are largely favorable for the U.S. consumer.

“The unemployment rate continues to decline from its COVID-19 peak of 14.8%,” S&P Global Ratings said. “While inflation has been a hot topic, we believe it to be largely transitory. Vaccination rates increased in August, surrounding growing concerns attributable to the Delta variant.

“Some 14 million people received their first dose of the vaccine, 4 million more than July (leading to the current level of 74.4%, with at least one dose as of Sept. 1),” analysts continued.

S&P Global Ratings touched on three other points that have some connection to automotive, including:

— Federal stimulus and other government assistance packages have helped consumer asset-backed securities (ABS) products weather the storm brought by COVID-19, with most sectors exhibiting stronger performance than pre-COVID. However, the expiration of such assistance will likely begin to normalize consumer ABS performance in the coming months.

— Various consumer debt service coverage ratios are on the decline, as disposable income has recently increased due to federal stimulus and decreased spending through 2020 and early 2021 following global lockdown measures.

— The average change in credit quality through the pandemic and into Q3 2021 has been minimal in U.S. ABS and RMBS.