Bloomberg reports that MasterCard sees luxury spending declining less slowly than before.
"Things have stopped getting worse," Jorn Lambert, head of the credit-card company's "core products" for Europe, said on the sidelines of a luxury industry conference in Monaco today. The 17 percent year-on-year drop was smaller than the figure for April, he said.
U.S. spending via MasterCard fell 8 percent in the first quarter of 2009, Lambert said. About 1.6 billion cardholders spend $2.5 trillion a year through their MasterCards.
Lambert said MasterCard compiles the data by tracking the 10 percent of U.S. retailers selling apparel or leather goods, including department stores, with the highest retail price.
Most of the news in the consumer spending, jobs and housing categories are that things are getting less worse. These are positive signs the economy is stabilizing and possibly nearing a bottom. How long we are going to stay at the bottom is currently a matter of debate among economists.
