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German Retails Sales Drop

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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In another sign that the recession in the European Union has spread well beyond the weakest nations, retail sales fell 1.1% in Germany in May. The Federal Statistics Bureau issued a report that showed:

According to provisional results retail turnover in May 2012 in Germany increased 1.0% in nominal terms and decreased 1.1% in real terms compared with the corresponding month of the previous year. The number of days open for sale was 24 in May 2012 and 26 in May 2011.

The news likely will prompt Angela Merkel and many of the nation’s politicians to pause again and reconsider the substantial billions of euros the country has put into bailout funds for Germany’s neighbors. Pulling back on these commitments may help Germany avoid higher tax rates to support these funds and new levels of austerity within the country. However, stimulus measures for the balance of the region are meant to increase economic activity. This may help increase German exports and calm consumers who believe Germany has been pulled into the areawide recession.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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