Retail Sales Unchanged

The futures indicate that the market will open higher this morning. The surprising news of this morning is that the Democrats lost the by-election to replace Anthony Weiner in New York’s ninth congressional district. This was seen as a relatively safe seat for the Democrats.

The retail sales report for August was unchanged from July. Wall Street was expecting an increase of 0.3% so this was a bit of a surprise. Some economists are concerned that the summer swoon had a larger impact on consumer spending than was first realized. Also, the initial retail sales report for July showed an increase of 0.5%. That was revised down to 0.3%.

The PPI report showed that wholesale inflation was flat last month which is welcome news for inflation hawks. The “core rate” rose by just 0.1%.

There’s more bad news for French banks this morning. These banks had the most exposure to the problems in Greece. Moody’s has downgraded the long-term debt of two major French banks, Société Générale and Crédit Agricole. Additionally, BNP Paribas is under review for a downgrade. Actually, some investors think Moody’s action could have been harsher.

Posted by on September 14th, 2011 at 8:58 am


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