January Retail Sales Rose 0.2%

This morning, we got the retail sales report for January. Sales rose by 0.2% in January. Wall Street had been expecting an increase of 2.3%. This comes after the terrible report for December. In fact, the December report was revised even lower this morning.

The original report said that retail sales fell 1.2% in December. Now they’re saying it declined by 1.6%.

The January retail sales report was delayed by a 35-day partial shutdown of the federal government that ended on Jan. 25. February’s retail sales report, which was scheduled for publication on Thursday, will be released on April 1.

Excluding automobiles, gasoline, building materials and food services, retail sales rebounded 1.1 percent in January after a downwardly revised 2.3 percent plunge in December.

These so-called core retail sales correspond most closely with the consumer spending component of gross domestic product.

They were previously reported to have decreased 1.7 percent in December. The downward revision to December core retail sales could have an impact on the government’s fourth-quarter gross domestic product estimate.

I’m not a big fan of this data. I’m guessing the shutdown screwed things up. The strong earnings news from Walmart and Ross Stores tells me that Consumer is still healthy.

Posted by on March 11th, 2019 at 11:59 am


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