Retail Sales Rose 1.9% in September

This morning’s retail sales report showed a nice increase of 1.9%. That beat Wall Street’s forecast of 0.7%. The report covered the month of September. If you don’t include autos, then retail sales were up by 1.5%. That beat estimates of 0.4%. Retail sales is important because it’s seen as a proxy for consumer spending.

The stock market is up cautiously today. So far, more conservative sectors like health care and utilities are leading the market.

The data indicate Americans ramped up spending as kids returned to school and adults hunkered down to keep working at home amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Last month’s growth improved from August’s 0.6 percent rise even though expanded unemployment benefits and other stimulus measures have run dry in recent months.

“Despite unemployment benefits expiring for millions of Americans, today’s retail sales figure shows us there is still some gas in the tank for the consumer,” said Charlie Ripley, senior investment strategist for Allianz Investment Management.

September’s total retail sales were 5.4 percent above where they were a year ago even though the pandemic has put millions of Americans out of work and caused a record contraction in the US economy this spring.

Posted by on October 16th, 2020 at 11:47 am


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