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Friday, February 15, 2019

US Retail Sales Collapse In December: Biggest Drop In A Decade

While Bank of America had warned investors to brace for a dismal retail spending print in January, expectations remained positive (albeit just a 0.1% MoM move) for December's (delayed due to shutdown) official spending data today. As a reminder, on Tuesday we reported that retail sales ex-autos, as measured by the aggregated BAC credit and debit card data, tumbled 0.3% month-over-month seasonally adjusted in January - the biggest drop in three years. This followed a flat reading in retail sales ex-autos in December.


Turning to the January BAC internal data, in January, spending for 4 out of 14 sectors increased in the month, showing broad-based weakening.



As a reminder, Retail Sales for the Control Group soared in November (+0.9% MoM) so some slowdown was expected; but, the government's official retail spending data for December confirmed BofA's concerns and plunged...
Headline Retail Sales -1.2% MoM (+0.1% MoM exp)
Control Group Retail Sales -1.7% MoM (+0.4% MoM exp)

That is the biggest MoM drop in retail sales since 2009 for the headline and the biggest drop in the control group since the 9/11 attacks in 2001!...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Come to think about it, TV used to promote going out and shopping via commercials, ad time, PSAs, or by stating the importance of helping the economy....

Now all the media does is bash politics 24/7 and people are hypnotized by it and are no longer buying into going out to shop.

Sad state of affairs where there is no longer news, but only entertainment television.