Retail Sales: January Sales Show A Pleasant Bounce

The Census Bureau’s Advance Retail Sales Report released this morning shows that seasonally adjusted sales in January posted a welcome rebound from the December data, and those December numbers were adjusted upward. Headline sales increased 0.2% month-over-month and are up 3.4% year-over-year. Core Retail Sales (ex Autos) increased 0.1% MoM and are up 2.5% YoY.

The Investing.com forecasts were 0.1% for both Headline and Core Sales.

The chart below is a log-scale snapshot of retail sales since the early 1990s. The two exponential regressions through the data help us to evaluate the long-term trend of this key economic indicator.

The year-over-year percent change provides another perspective on the historical trend. Here is the headline series.

Here is the year-over-year version of Core Retail Sales.

Retail Sales: “Control” Purchases

The next two charts illustrate retail sales “Control” purchases, which is an even more “Core” view of retail sales. This series excludes Motor Vehicles & Parts, Gasoline, Building Materials as well as Food Services & Drinking Places.

Here is the same series year-over-year. Note the highlighted values at the start of the two recessions since the inception of this series in the early 1990s.

For a better sense of the reduced volatility of the “Control” series, here is a YoY overlay with the headline retail sales.

Bottom Line: The January sales bounce is welcome news at a time when equity markets have been contracting and the “R” word (rececession) has become a frequent topic of discussion.