Consumer Nation
- Holiday Tipping: Who And How Much
- Deep Discounts Should Make It a Very Tech-y Holiday
- This Holiday Season—Little Joy For Those Hard Hit
- Victoria's Secret Hopes to Rekindle Desire for Lingerie
- Consumers Feel Guilty: JC Penney CEO
- Mixed Signals Come From Retail Sector as Holidays Draw Near
- This Year's Biggest Thanksgiving Leftover: Cash
- Dollar General Trades Higher After Its IPO
- Sports Betting Web Site Sets Odds on Black Friday
- What's The Forecast from Retailers? Proceed With Caution
RSS FEED
- How Stock Investors Can Play Holiday Travel
- Time Lapse World Series Is A Great Play
- Hirschhorn: Greed...or Fear
- My Top 10 Tech Toys for the Holidays
- iPhone a Better Gaming Platform Than Android?
- May Day For Dendreon
- 100% Mortgage Financing From USDA
- Holiday Tipping: Who And How Much
- Deep Discounts Should Make It a Very Tech-y Holiday
- Credit Markets on Edge About When Fed Will Raise Rates
- Bove: Expect Goldman To Increase Dividend Meaningfully
- Bullish Sign for Gold: Central Banks Are Big Buyers
- Victoria's Secret Hopes to Rekindle Desire for Lingerie
- High Roller Sues Harrah's for Lost Millions
- Wall Street Jobs Slow to Return Despite Record Profits
- Big Shareholders Ask Goldman to Cut Bonuses: Report
- Buying an Expensive House? Government Can Help
- Review: What It's Like to Drive the New Chevy Volt
Text Size 
CNBC News Associate
You've probably heard about the hemline indicator, the lipstick indicator and other quirky things that are used to measure where the economy is heading. But how about another: men's underwear?
 |
(Video: CNBC's Becky Quick discusses the undie indicator.)
During a recession, underwear is among the first things that people stop buying—because hardly anybody actually sees them. This creates pent-up demand, and so when underwear sales level off and increase, it should signal an uptick in consumer demand.
According to the underwear indicator, an old favorite of Alan Greenspan, there needs to be a return to 2 to 3 percent annual growth in sales in order to claim a recovery.
However, consumer research group Mintel predicted underwear sales will see a continuing decline of 2.3 percent this year and no recovery until 2013.
But NPD's outlook for underwear sales offers more hope for the economy. After a year long, 12 percent decline through the end of January, men’s underwear sales leveled off in February and March, according to NPD.
-Reported by Becky Quick, written by JeeYeon Park
More from Consumer Nation:
- Warnaco CEO: 'Feeling Pretty Good' About Future
- One Couple, Two Views of Retirement
- Spam Goes Glam: Hormel Rebrands Its Meat-In-A-Can
- Members-Only Discounters Rise From Economic Rubble
- Consumers Poised to Ditch Their Frugal Ways?
Questions? Comments? Email us at
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes