US Retail Sales Soar In October; Gasoline Sales Spike

Analysts expected a strong bump in retail sales in October (+1.0% MoM) with BofA expecting an even stronger surge thanks to California’s stimmy checks.

BofA was right but even they under-estimated the gains as Retail sales rose 1.3% MoM – the biggest jump since February 2022…

Source: Bloomberg

Core retail sales data also outperformed (Ex-Autos +1.3% MoM v +0.5% exp) and Ex-Autos and Gas +0.9% (v +0.2% exp).

Electronics and appliance stores saw sales slow, but Gasoline, Autos, and Food sales surged…

Finally, while not comparing apples to apples directly, adjusting the nominal value of retail sales for CPI gives us a better idea of just how strong the American consumers’ spending demand is up 0.87% MoM (the biggest jump since January)…

Source: Bloomberg

The 4.1% surge in gasoline sales is intriguing given that we have seen volume demand sinking significantly so we would not be getting too excited about this print as a representation of a ‘strong consumer’ too soon… especially given the impact of California’s stimmy checks.