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%.
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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.
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