Market Updates
August Retail Sales Highlighted Resilient Consumer Spending
Brian Turner
17 Sep, 2024
Washington, D.C.
Retail and food services sales increased 0.1% from the previous month in August as consumers showed resilience despite growing anxieties about the economic slowdown.
The sales data adjusted for seasonal and calendar effects but not for inflation.
The monthly growth slowed sharply from the revised 1.1% increase in the previous month.
On an annual basis, retail sales growth eased to 2.1%, a slowdown in growth for the third month in a row, the U.S. Commerce Department reported Tuesday.
Retail trade sales were up 0.1% from July and up 2.0% from last year, and nonstore retail sales were up 7.8%, while sales at food services and drinking places were up 2.7%, respectively.
Sales at gasoline stores decreased 1.2% following the fall in gasoline prices, and electronics and appliance store sales eased 0.7%.
Meanwhile, retail sales excluding food services, auto dealers, building materials stores, and gas stations, which are used to calculate GDP, were up 0.3%, following an upwardly revised 0.4% rise in July.
The Fed's lowering of inflation will only stoke inflationary forces in the months ahead, sending another ripple of higher prices.
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