US Retail Sales Falls in January

February 13, 2014 Share Print 0

U.S. retail sales fell unexpectedly in January, and another gauge of consumer spending also slipped.

The Commerce Department said on Thursday retail sales fell 0.4 percent last month, led by a drop in automobile sales. Sales fell by a revised 0.1 percent in December.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast retail sales would be unchanged in January after rising by a previously reported 0.2 percent in December.

Stripping out automobiles, gasoline, building materials and food services, so-called core sales fell 0.3 percent after rising by a downwardly revised 0.3 percent in December. Core sales correspond most closely with the consumer spending component of gross domestic product.

Economists had expected this category to advance 0.2 percent in January.

via Reuters

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Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse

Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.