Retail Sales Rose 0.8% Last Month

As the holiday shopping season ramps up, we got a look at the retail sales report for November. Last month, retail sales rose by 0.8%. The number for October was bumped up from growth of 0.2% to growth of 0.5%.

If we look at “core” retail sales, which doesn’t include cars, gas, building materials or food services, then retail sales rose by 0.8%. This suggests the consumer is in a good mood.

We also got the initial claims report, which dropped to 225,000. That’s very close to a multi-decade low. Eight weeks ago, we got down to 223,000. That was the lowest since March 31, 1973.

Posted by on December 14th, 2017 at 3:24 pm


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