Mixed US Retail Sales Leave the USD Puzzled

The US retail sales report was released a while ago. October was pretty good and revisions today were even better. Sales were expected to be pretty strong in November as well, but that wasn’t the case. Although, they weren’t too bad either, posting another increase last month. Below are the numbers from today’s report:

  • November retail sales 0.2% vs 0.5% expected
  • October stood at +0.3%, but was revised to +0.4%
  • Core sales +0.1% vs +0.3% expected
  • October core sales stood at 0.2% but was revised to +0.3%
  • Excluding autos and gas 0.0% vs +0.4%
  • October ex auto and gas stood at +0.1%, revised to +0.2%

The figures for November should have sent the USD lower, but I suspect the softness has more to do with the timing of Black Friday being so close to month-end, rather than consumer weakness. That said, we might see some downward revisions to US GDP on this, including later today in the New York Fed measure.

In fact, the USD is climbing higher now, but only against risk currencies, because it is losing ground against safe havens. This shows that the sentiment has been dented somewhat after the retail sales report.
Further details below:
  • Autos +0.5%
  • Electronics +0.7%
  • Building materials 0.0%
  • Health and personal care -1.1%
  • Non-store retailers (online) +0.8%
  • Clothing -0.6%
  • Sporting goods -0.5%
  • General merchandise +0.1%
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Skerdian Meta
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Skerdian Meta Lead Analyst. Skerdian is a professional Forex trader and a market analyst. He has been actively engaged in market analysis for the past 11 years. Before becoming our head analyst, Skerdian served as a trader and market analyst in Saxo Bank's local branch, Aksioner. Skerdian specialized in experimenting with developing models and hands-on trading. Skerdian has a masters degree in finance and investment.
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