CE Retail Confidence Crashes in August

The dog days of summer hit the Dealerscope CE Retail Confidence Index hard entering the final full month of the season. As the calendar flipped to August, the DS Index saw its score go from the third-highest on record to a new record-low, checking in at 155.19. Prior to this month, the DS Index had experienced a sting of successful months, including three straight months with a score over the 200-point threshold.

August didn't seem to care.

A number of different data points stand out and help point to why specifically the DS Index experienced such a crash, but several external factors are also worth mentioning. Just as the monthly survey was coming to a close, the latest salvo in the U.S.-China trade war was fired, with President Donald Trump signaling his intentions to lay another 10 percent tariff on $300 billion worth of Chinese goods starting September 1.