Underwear Sales Increase, Suggesting A Rebounding Economy

Looking closer at the data, specific undergarment companies are flourishing in the current economy. HanesBrands Inc., for example, has seen underwear sales increase steadily over the past three years, climbing from $1.83 billion in 2009 to $2.01 billion in 2010 to $2.06 billion in 2011, according to SEC files. Sales for the first half of 2012 -- the most recent available data -- are also stronger, coming in at $1.17 billion, compared to $1.15 billion in the first half of 2011. The company's stock price, which hit a 6-month low of $24.78 per share on May 18, was over $33 per share on Monday.

Limited Brands Inc., the parent company of Victoria's Secret, does not separate that company's revenues from those of its other brand names, like Bath and Body Works. The company's overall store sales for the first half of 2012, however, were up 8 percent from the first half of 2011, according to its latest earnings statement, and it saw its stock price rise from $45.11 on May 18 to more than $50 on Monday.

Greenspan's theory on underwear sales as an economic indicator was fairly straightforward.

"If you look at sales of male underpants it's just pretty much a flat line, it hardly ever changes," NPR's Robert Krulwich explained of the theory, after Greenspan's book "The Age Of Turbulence" was published. "But on those few occasions where it dips that means that men are so pinched that they are deciding not to replace underpants. And [Greenspan] said 'that is almost always a prescient, forward impression that here comes trouble.'"

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