Submitted by Mark Hanna
Courtesy of MarketMontage. View original post here.
This is the fourth major economic report in the past two weeks to disappoint, but in this market that means selling for a few hours to a day. To be fair, we just had a host of retailers post same store sales yesterday and they were generally decent – all things being equal I am more interested in what companies are saying versus the government as the granularity at the government level is not going to be that good. Further a good chunk of this miss was due to dropping sales at gas stations which is perversely a good thing, as higher gas prices had helped “increase” retail sales in previous months (higher gas prices = higher sales) The market needed an excuse to come in some since it has been straight up since Friday 9:31 AM, so we will see what time the dip buyers come in aka 9:31 AM this morning or 10:01 AM?
Via Marketwatch:
- U.S. retail sales fell in March by the biggest amount in nine months as Americans cut back on purchases of most kinds of consumer goods, perhaps a sign that higher taxes and slower job creation are taking a bite. Retail sales fell a seasonally adjusted 0.4% last month to mark the biggest decline since last June. Sales also fell 0.4% excluding autos. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had forecast a 0.1% decline overall and no change excluding autos.
- Sales fell the sharpest at gasoline stations – a good thing for consumers – because of falling priced at the pump. Yet sales also softened in most other categories, including autos, electronics, groceries, hobby items, personal care and general merchandise. As a result, sales minus gasoline stations dropped 0.2%.
- Retail sales rose at home-furnishing stores, bars and restaurants and Internet retailers.
- In February, the government revised the retail-sales increase to 1.0% from 1.1% while the prior estimate of a 0.2% gain in January was revised to show a 0.1% drop. In the past year, retail sales have risen a seasonally adjusted 2.8%, down from 4.4% in February
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