The optimism surrounding the big increase in quarterly GDP was dampened today after U.S. Census Bureau announced the retail sales.

• Month-over-month
  • The seasonally adjusted U.S. retail sales for December declined by -0.9% from previous month. The estimates was +0.2%. Previous month’s month-over-month rate was also revised down to +0.4% from 0.7%.
  • The Core Retail Sales excluding automobiles was down -1.0%
• Year-over-Year
  • The retail sales was up 3.2% from last year
  • The core retail sales was up 1.7% from last year

Here is how the graphs look. Not a pretty picture.

Feature Image courtesy of Ambro at FreeDigitalPhotos.net