Retail sales started the new year down, but the drop in sales was due to lower gasoline prices. Specifically, the Advance Retail Sales Report for January (pdf) from the Census Bureau estimated that our total seasonally adjusted retail and food services sales were at $439.8 billion in January, which was a decrease of 0.8% (±0.5%) from the December sales of $443.3 billion, but 3.3 percent (±0.9%) above sales in January of last year. December's sales were revised up by less than 0.1%, from $442.9 billion,
The Advance Retail Sales Report for October (pdf) from the Census Bureau estimated that our total seasonally adjusted retail and food services sales were at $444.5 billion in October, which was an increase of 0.3% (±0.5%)* from the revised September sales of $443.0 billion, and 4.1% (±0.9%) above sales in October of last year.. Recall that the asterisk on October’s sales indicates that from their small sampling of retail outlets, Censu
There were two somewhat important economic reports for October released last week, coincidentally both rescheduled for release at 8:30 AM on Wednesday, retail sales from the commerce department and the consumer price index from the bureau of labor statistics (BLS).. Together they're often used by economists to generate a metric that goes by 'real retail sales', which is supposed to be something analogous to the real personal consumption expenditures metric of GDP, and which is said to be an indica
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