Tag Archives: U.S. Retail Sales

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.10% to 1.085 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, July 16(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: The markets head into the weekend with little fanfare. Most large equity markets in the Asia Pacific region slipped earlier today. Hong Kong, which will be exempt from the need to secure mainland’s cybersecurity approval for foreign IPOs, and Australia were notable exceptions. European...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.10% to 1.0522 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, May 15(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: The S&P 500 staged an impressive recovery yesterday, a sell-off that took it to its lowest level since April 21, to close more than 1% higher on the day, helped set the tone in the Far East and Europe today. Gains in most Asia Pacific markets, but Hong Kong, Shanghai, and India,...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.06% to 1.1006 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, October 16(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: Fading hopes that a Brexit agreement can be struck is seeing sterling trade broadly lower, while China’s demand that US tariffs be rescinded in exchange for a commitment to buy $40-$50 bln of US agriculture goods over two years, makes the handshake agreement less secure. At the same...

Before the stock market’s slide beginning in early October, for most people they heard the economy was booming, the labor market was unbelievably good, an inflationary breakout just over the horizon. Jay Powell did as much as anyone to foster this belief, chief caretaker to the narrative. He and his fellow central bankers couldn’t use the word “strong” enough. After the market slide through Christmas Eve, everything...

You just don’t see $4 billion monthly retail sales revisions, in either direction. Advance estimates are changed all the time, each monthly figure will be recalculated twice after its initial release. Typically, though, the subsequent revisions are minor rarely amounting to a billion. Four times that? Last month, the Census Bureau reported that retail sales during the Christmas holiday were a disaster. It was Christmas...

Retail sales rebounded 0.8% in October 2018 from September 2018, but it’s the downward revisions to the prior months that are cause for attention. The estimates for particularly September were moved sharply lower. Total retail sales two months ago had been figured last month at $485.8 billion (unadjusted) originally, but are now believed to have been just $483.0 billion. The difference takes the growth rate underneath...

Americans are spending more on filling up. A lot more. According the Census Bureau, retail sales at gasoline stations had increased by nearly 20% year-over-year (unadjusted) in both May and June 2018. In the latest figures for July, released today, gasoline station sales were up by more than 21%. The last time they surged this much was September 2011, also the last time oil prices were having this big of an effect on...

Retail sales rose (seasonally adjusted) in March 2018 for the first time in four months. Related to last year’s big hurricanes and the distortions they produced, retail sales had surged in the three months following their immediate aftermath and now appear to be mean reverting toward what looks like the same weak pre-storm baseline. Exactly how far (or fast) won’t be known until subsequent months. US Retail Sales, Jan...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.06% to 1.187 CHF. EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, April 16(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates The Syrian strike over the weekend, and the official indication that “mission accomplished” and that was a limited one-off strike has spurred little market reaction. There is one more loose end, as it were, and that is that the US has...

If indeed this inflation hysteria has passed, its peak was surely late January. Even the stock market liquidations that showed up at that time were classified under that narrative. The economy was so good, it was bad; the Fed would be forced by rapid economic acceleration to speed themselves up before that acceleration got out of hand in uncontrolled consumer price gains. On February 1, the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow...