US: Consumers are now bouncing back - NBF

Matías Salord FXStreet

According to National Bank of Canada’s analyst, Krishen Rangasamy, the message from today’s US retail sales report is that after a difficult start to the year, American consumers are now bouncing back.

Key Quotes:

“What impressed most about March’s results was not just the monthly increase of 1.6% (best since September 2017) but also the broad-based nature of gains. Autos led the charge for retailers with a 3.1% increase, more than erasing declines in the prior two months. But excluding autos, sales were also strong (+1.2%) with contributions from almost every broad category. Non-store sales, which include online retailers, continue to outperform.”

“The share of non-store sales in total retail sales jumped to a record 11.8% in the first quarter of 2019. In other words, brick and mortar stores are underperforming. And that’s having negative repercussions on retail employment whose share of private non-farm payrolls sank to 12.3% in Q1, the lowest since 1967.”

Author

Matías Salord

FXStreet

Matías started in financial markets in 2008, after graduating in Economics. He was trained in chart analysis and then became an educator. He also studied Journalism. He started writing analyses for specialized websites before joining FXStreet.

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