BofA's omniscient forecasters were - for a change - more or less in line with consensus for retail sales in November...
The actual print was mixed with the headline retail sales rising 0.7% MoM (hotter than expected), while core retail sales disappointed. The headline beat pushed sales up 3.8% YoY - the highest since Dec 2023...
Source: Bloomberg
Motor Vehicle & Parts were the biggest driver of the upside surprise...
Sales were also helped by online retailers...
The key 'Control Group' saw sales rise 0.4% MoM (as epxected
Source: Bloomberg
BofA notes that the robust spending that we saw around Thanksgiving continued through Cyber Monday week.
We can’t learn much from year-over-year growth rates, since they were heavily impacted by the calendar shift. Therefore, we compare spending to the analogous period in 2023.
We find that spending on holiday items in the two weeks ending Dec 7 in 2024 was 6.1% higher than in the two weeks ending the Saturday after Cyber Monday in 2023.
Finally, as a reminder, retail sales data is 'nominal' so a quick sleight of hand using CPI data as a rough indication of inflation and we see that in fact, real retail sales have basically oscillated around the flatline for the last 30-months-plus...
Source: Bloomberg
So another data point for The Fed that clearly signals no need for rate-cuts! Does this look like an economy dealing with 'restrictive' rates?
