My readers should not have been surprised that retail sales held up quite well in February despite very poor economic news. My tracking of a few indicators gave clues that sales had not deteriorated and, in fact, improved a little (click on the CONSUMER WATCH TAB or here). Chain store sales also held up well in the first week of March (see it here).
This morning retail sales report surprised on the upside with a decline of only 0.1%. Excluding autos, sales were up 0.7%. Gains were relatively widespread with seven components out of ten being up. (…)
After one of the worse quarter in history, households are on track to increase their discretionary spending in the first quarter of 2009. Retail sales data points to consumer spending as a whole being a lot less negative than in the fourth quarter. The recession is certainly not over, but the Q4 retail sales dismal performance won’t be repeated in the first quarter of 2009.
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