Thursday, February 15, 2007

Retail Sales unchanged in January

From the Department of Commerce.

This is in PDF format.

The DOC revised the December figure higher from a .9% increase to a 1.2% increase.

Motor Vehicles, electronics stores, and restaurants and bars were all down slightly.

Gas stations were down big, but then again so were oil prices for the first half of January.

Building materials, home furnishings and clothing/apparel were up slightly.

Basically, it looks like the consumer stopped spending on more extravagant purchases (autos and wide screen TVs) and bought more of the traditional needs based items. This shouldn't surprise anybody coming after Christmas.