Retail Sales Continues Relatively Strong In October 2014

Retail sales improved according to US Census and slightly above expectations. Our analysis disagrees – but the unadjusted data in this series is like riding a roller coaster. Note that the 3 month rolling average of sales growth declined only marginally – and the year-over-year growth remains higher than GDP growth.

Econintersect Analysis:

unadjusted sales rate of growth decelerated 1.4% month-over-month, and up4.6% year-over-year.

unadjusted sales 3 month rolling year-over-year average growth decelerated0.1% month-over-month to 4.5% year-over-year.

Advance Retail Sales Year-over-Year Change – Unadjusted (blue line), Unadjusted with Inflation Adjustment (red line), and 3 Month Rolling Average of Unadjusted (yellow line)

unadjusted sales (but inflation adjusted) up 3.5% year-over-year

backward revisions were slight;

this is an advance report. Please see caveats below showing variations between the advance report and the “final”.

almost all areas were tailwinds this month for retail sales growth, with only electronics and gasoline stations being the headwinds month-over-month.

U.S. Census Headlines:

seasonally adjusted sales up 0.3% month-over-month, up 4.1% year-over-year

the market was expecting:

Year-over-Year Change – Unadjusted Retail Sales (blue line) and Inflation Adjusted Retail Sales (red line)

Retail sales per capita seems to be in a long term downtrend (but short term trends vary depending on periods selected – see graph below).

Year-over-Year Change – Per Capita Seasonally Adjusted Retail Sales

From the U.S. Census Bureau press release:

The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for October, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $444.5 billion, an increase of 0.3 percent (±0.5%)* from the previous month, and 4.1 percent (±0.9%) above October 2013. Total sales for the August through October 2014 period were up 4.5 percent (±0.7%) from the same period a year ago. The August to September 2014 percent change was unrevised from -0.3% (±0.2%).

Retail trade sales were up 0.3 percent (±0.5%)* from September 2014, and 3.8 percent (±0.7%) above last year. Nonstore retailers were up 9.1 percent (±2.1%) from October 2013 and auto and other motor vehicle dealers were up 8.3 percent (±3.0%) from last year.