US retail sales: Good news for 4Q GDP. – Wells Fargo

By FXStreet FXStreet (Córdoba) – According to analysts from Wells Fargo, today report on retail sales that showed an increase of 0.2% in November and 0.5% excluding autos and gasoline is an overall good report.

Key Quotes:

“Once all is said and done and we take away the effects of gasoline prices on the retail sales number, any worry regarding the U.S. consumer should be put to rest. U.S. consumers are still contributing to growth in the economy.

“With the exception of health and personal care stores, where sales remained flat in November, all other retail sectors posted a strong performance during the month. Electronics & appliance stores sales inched up 0.6 percent, but remained down 2.3 percent versus a year earlier.”

“The fact that the rest of the sectors were so strong meant that control sales, which feed directly into the calculation of GDP, increased a healthy 0.6 percent before taking inflation into account. Thus, this retail report is good news for fourth quarter GDP, even though we still believe that personal consumption expenditures are going to come in weaker than originally expected. However, these numbers mean that holiday sales should remain strong as U.S. consumers approach the last month of …read more

Source:: FX Street