Retail Sales Growth Improves In December 2017?

Retail sales were up according to US Census headline data. The unadjusted rolling averages declined.

Analyst Opinion of Retail Sales

Things to consider when viewing this data:

it is not inflation adjusted.

the three month rolling averages of the unadjusted data marginally declined

our analysis says this month’s growth was near average for the growth seen in the last 12 months..

The relationship between year-over-year growth in inflation adjusted retail sales and retail employment do not correlate.

Backward data revisions were upward.

Econintersect Analysis:

unadjusted sales rate of growth decelerated 2.5 % month-over-month, and up4.0 % year-over-year.

unadjusted sales 3 month rolling year-over-year average growth decelerated 0.2 % month-over-month, up 5.2 % year-over-year.

unadjusted sales (but inflation adjusted) up 2.3 % year-over-year

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

in the seasonally adjusted data – the major weakness was sporting goods. There was significant strength in building materials and non-store retailers.

U.S. Census Headlines:

seasonally adjusted sales up 0.4 % month-over-month, up 5.4 % year-over-year.

the market was expecting (from Bloomberg / Econoday):

seasonally adjusted Consensus Range Consensus Actual Retail Sales – M/M change 0.2 % to 0.7 % +0.5 % +0.4 % Retail Sales less autos – M/M change 0.1 % to 0.8 % +0.4 % +0.4 % Less Autos & Gas – M/M Change 0.2 % to 0.6 % +0.5 % +0.4 % Control Group – M/M change 0.3 % to 0.6 % +0.3 % +0.3 %

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