In our recent webinar, we spent some time looking into foot traffic trends at airports in America and Europe. Location data is a very reliable proxy for airline passengers, since there are few reasons to be at an airport other than to board a plane. Precise mapping can filter out people who have come to collect or drop off passengers from those who have passed security in order to catch a flight.

In a previous blog post we talked about how the home improvement sector has been one of the bright spots in the pandemic. Year-over-year foot traffic to building material retailers was up 26% in September. Given this trend, we wanted to look in more detail at one of the most popular companies in the home improvement sector - Ikea. While foot traffic at Ikea stores fell to 0 between April and June, once stores reopened traffic rebounded almost immediately to pre-pandemic levels.

There’s no question that the retail sector has been hit hard this year. Foot traffic at Macy’s, which was already struggling prior to the pandemic, was down 64% last quarter compared to the same quarter in 2019. Like many of its peers, Macy’s has relied on its online business to bolster revenues during a period when many of its stores were closed. But, although overall sales have slumped, an interesting trend has emerged for those who do visit stores.

For investors, foot traffic data is fast becoming a critical weapon as part of an alternative data armory. The value of tracking real-time visitation numbers to retail and consumer-facing compa-nies is widely recognized. Yet, as we explore here, measuring traffic to industrial companies can offer even more effective signals to predict top line performance. It is intuitive that the number of employees at production facilities should be an indicator of pro-duction, which in turn would help forecast revenues.

Are you back in the office? It’s a question many of us find ourselves asking our friends and peers. The answer is, it depends. Each has their own comfort level, and it also depends largely on their role and their employer. Morgan Stanley announced in May that it would start bringing traders back to the floor in June. Most recently, JP Morgan made a similar announcement - those in sales and trading roles returned on September 21.

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What does a COVID recovery look like for businesses? 6 months after the initial lock-down we know that, in the US, the journey has been remarkably different for different types of businesses. Our foot traffic indices capture trends that show just how varied the path has been. We looked at the percentage change in foot traffic for 5 different sectors during each month of this year. Starting in March, of those we analyzed, the sectors most quickly impacted were clothing & accessories.

Recovery in Foot Traffic Levels at Car Dealerships Most Pronounced in Red States Like many other sectors, the US car industry saw a sharp downturn in business when lock-down orders and business closures were at their peak in late March and April. Combined sales in April 2020 for the Big 3 US carmakers - GM, Ford and Fiat-Chrysler - were down 63% compared to the previous year according to GoodCarBadCar.net.

Foot Traffic to Truck Stops Rebounds Post Lock-down A recent article on Wall Street Journal by Peter Grant took an insightful look at how truck stops in the US have been boosted this year, in part due to the increase in demand for e-commerce and delivery. Travel Centers of America (NASDAQ: TA), the largest publicly listed operator of truck stops in the US, saw its share price increase 50% following its quarterly earning announcement in early August.

As we near the last stretch of the US summer season, we looked again at foot traffic data for US airports as one measure of the impact being felt by the travel industry. In our blog post on June 19th, we noted that traffic at US international hubs was severely depressed, with some regional hubs seeing a little more activity. As a key indicator of overall air travel, the chart below shows foot traffic at all US airports.