Retail Sales Rise—but Less Than Forecast
January sales show a modest increase, and core retail numbers hint at economic improvements.
Retail sales climbed a mere 0.4 percent in January, the Commerce Department said Tuesday.
That was lower than the 0.7 percent increase forecast by a Reuters poll of economists.
But so-called core retail sales—which exclude auto, gasoline and building materials, and correspond most closely with the consumer spending component of the GDP—showed a 0.7 percent increase, reports Reuters.
The biggest retail sales gain came at gasoline stations, which showed a 1.4 percent rise. Sales of cars and auto parts fell 1.1 percent; shopping at non-store retailers (a category dominated by online sales) also saw a 1.1 percent decrease. These decreases had the greatest impact on the overall retail sales numbers, reports Reuters.
“The headline number was a littler weaker than expected but the core figure was better so net-net it was not entirely a negative repory,” Boris Schlossberg, director of currency research at GFT in Jersey City, New Jersey, told Reuters. –Abby Tracy
Photo via William Hartz
