Retail to Rally Late
by January 6, 2003 12:00 am 71 views
Daniel Barry, a retail analyst with Merrill Lynch Global Securities in New York, said sales increases for the first two quarters of 2003 will be down compared to previous years but should recover in the second half of the year.
In 2002, real U.S. general merchandise sales increased by 9.7 percent in the first quarter, 9.4 percent in the second and 7.3 percent in the third. Barry wouldn’t predict increases for 2003 other than saying sales won’t match the numbers for the first two quarters.
Like the rest of the retail sector, Barry said, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will have trouble showing much of a sales increase in the first half 2003.
Barry predicts sales for the 2002 Christmas season to be up only 3 percent over 2001 (which was “the best year in four decades” with an 8.6 percent increase). So the 3 percent number will be easy to beat in the fourth quarter of 2003.
Education
The University of Arkansas’ Fayetteville campus received $98.2 million in general revenue funding from the state last year. For fiscal 2003, which begins July 1, that amount is expected to decrease 1.24 percent to $97 million, according to the Arkansas Department of Higher Education.
State-supported four-year colleges are currently slated to receive a total of $471.6 million, down 2.12 percent from last year. The current prediction is that the state’s two-year colleges will receive $110.2 million, down 1.44 percent from the previous year.