Retail Sales increased 1.2% for October 2010 and is up 7.3% from a year ago. The three month average of October, September and August 2010 has an increase of 6.3% in comparison to a year ago.

The big story is autos. Car Dealers sales rose 5.7% from last month. Without auto sales, retail sales only rose 0.4% from last month. Who is buying all of those cars? Did we have a fleet sale or ? Below is the St. Louis FRED graph for retail sales minus autos. Auto dealer sales plus parts was lower, 5.0% vs. 5.7%, which the below graph includes in it's subtraction to remove all things auto in retail sales.

Retail trade sales were up 1.3 percent (±0.5%) from September 2010, and 7.7 percent (±0.7%) above last year. Auto and other motor vehicle dealers sales were up 14.7 percent (±2.5%) from October 2009 and nonstore retailers sales were up 13.5 percent (±3.1%) from last year.

These numbers are seasonally adjusted, for anyone believing it's all Christmas. Well, it was Christmas for someone, for it's really all cars. Retail sales is also not adjusted for prices, but is for Holiday shopping sprees.