Peaks and valleys

This is the annual peak season for speculation about how strong the fall peak season will be for imports for the holiday sales season.

Carriers and terminal operators have been hoping that tapped-out consumers will resume the spending that caused import volumes to grow at close to double-digit rates before recession hit. Statistics released today by the Commerce Department may indicate that the recession has bottomed out -- or maybe not.

Retail sales in August rose by a seasonally adjusted 2.7 percent over July, the largest month-to-month increase since January 2006. The Commerce Department also reported that business inventories in July fell 1 percent from June, the 11th straight month of decline, and were 12 percent down from July 2008.

Economists call the retail-sales data promising but warn about getting too excited about them. Although the July-to-August increase in sales was impressive, its meaning is ambiguous. August's numbers were inflated by car sales under the Cast For Clunkers program and by increased gasoline sales. Numbers were up for clothing retailers, department stores and sporting goods and book stores but were down for building materials and home furnishing stores.

Furthermore, August retail sales were down 5.3 percent from August 2008 -- a sign that that this recession isn't over yet.