US: Retail sales to rise 0.4% - BMO CM

The holiday shopping season had a strong kick-off this year as Redbook reported that same store sales were up 4.8% y/y in the final week of November, matching the third best end-of-November result since at least 1996, points out Michael Gregory, Deputy Chief Economist at BMO Capital Markets.

Key Quotes

“Online sales soared, with Cyber Monday’s tally setting a record according to Adobe (and corroborated by Amazon who said it was their best single day worldwide in the history of the company). The positive impact this will have on November’s total retail sales will be fueled further by stronger gasoline station receipts (owing to higher prices) and the start of iPhone X sales, but will be braked a bit by lower vehicle sales.”

“Overall, we look for retail sales to rise 0.4%, or 0.7% ex-autos and 0.4% ex-autos-and-gas. The latter is a solid result, with potentially more in store, supported by sturdy job and income growth, healthy household balance sheets and elevated levels of consumer confidence (the Conference Board’s metric at a 17-year high).”