Retail Sales December, 2012

Retails sales rose 0.5% in December from 0.4% in November. Ex-autos and parts, December retail sales rose 0.3% from (0.1%) in November. On a year over year basis, December 2012 retail sales rose 4.7% while ex-autos and parts they rose 3.6%. This is well below the 7% YOY growth in wholesale inventories which were recently reported.

Purely looking at the chart below, it would appear the growth in retail sales is primarily “driven” by autos and parts because when you look at sales minus this component they are relatively flat.

Consumer Credit September, 2012

Consumer credit