Breaking: US Retail Sales plunged by 16.4% in April vs. -12% expected

Eren Sengezer FXStreet

Retail Sales in the United States declined by %16.4 on a monthly basis in April to $403.9 billion, the data published by the US Census Bureau revealed on Friday.

This reading followed March's decline of 8.3% (revised from 8.4%) and came in worse than the market expectation of -12%. Further details of the publication revealed that Retail Sales Excluding Autos dropped by 16.4%.

"Total sales for the February 2020 through April 2020 period were down 7.7% from the same period a year ago," the publication further read.

Market reaction

The US Dollar Index largely ignored this data and was last seen gaining 0.14% on the day at 100.40. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 futures extended the daily decline and is now down 1.1% on a daily basis.

Retail Sales Quick Analysis: Core of the core plunges by triple the estimates, third blow to markets.

Expect low, go even lower – US Retail Sales were projected to fall by 12% in April after sliding by 8.3% in March, but the outcome was -16.4%. Moreover, the closely watched Control Group – which is critical to growth calculations – plunged by 15.3%. That is triple the estimate.

GBP/USD struggles near multi-week lows, just above mid-1.2100s post-US retail sales.

A sudden pickup in the US dollar demand pushed the GBP/USD pair to fresh seven-week lows, around mid-1.2100s in the last hour. The pair maintained its heavily offered tone and had a rather muted reaction to the US macro data.

Author

Eren Sengezer

FXStreet

As an economist at heart, Eren Sengezer specializes in the assessment of the short-term and long-term impacts of macroeconomic data, central bank policies and political developments on financial assets.

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