The U.S. Commerce Department has announced its estimates of U.S. retail sales for the month of August. It is a positive but mixed report, when you take the revisions for July into consideration. The seasonally adjusted report was up 0.2% on the headline basis at $447.7 billion. Dow Jones was calling for a gain of 0.2% on the headline. On a year-over-year basis, retail sales were up 2.2%.

Tuesday’s report showed that retail trade sales were up 0.1% versus July 2015 and up 1.4% above last year. Food services and drinking places were up 8.2% from August 2014, and non-store retailers were up 6.9%.

The advance estimates are based on a subsample of the Census Bureau’s full retail and food services sample, which comes to about 4,900 retail and food services firms being surveyed.

When you get into the nitty-gritty of the report and then compare them to July, retail sales were up 0.1% auto and auto parts are excluded. Sales at gas stations were down by 1.8%. Building and garden materials were down by 1.8%, and furniture and home furnishings sales were down by 0.9%. Retail sales excluding gas and autos were up 0.3%.

A small boost that came in the report was that July’s headline retail sales reading was revised to a gain of 0.7% from a preliminary reported gain of 0.6%.

ALSO READ: Will the Fed’s $4.5 Trillion Balance Sheet Matter in Its Rate Hike Decision?

As a reminder, close to 70% of gross domestic product is based on consumer spending. That makes this reading the middle report for the quarter, and the prior report was adjusted higher by 0.1%.

This is one of those reports that are marginally better than expected. It should not have a serious market impact, but traders and economists are bracing for Fed Chair Yellen to announce the Federal Reserve’s decision on interest rates.

Thank you for reading! Have some feedback for us?
Contact the 24/7 Wall St. editorial team.