US Retail Sales Soared In July As Non-Store Retailers Spending Spiked

“Prepare for a big beat” was the message from BofA’s sage-like forecasters for this morning’s retail sales print….

And sure enough they were right as July retail sales rose 0.7% MoM (beating the 0.4% jump expected) -the best monthly jump since Jan

Source: Bloomberg

Under the hood, everything was green except

• Motor Vehicles and Parts Dealers: -0.3%

• Furniture and home furnishings -1.8%

• Electronics and appliance stores -1.3%

Non-store retailers soared – with some suggesting this was Amazon’s Prime Day…

On a YoY basis, headline and core retail sales accelerated…

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, we note that the control group – which is used in the GDP calculation – soared 1.0% MoM (more than double the expected 0.4% MoM rise).

Source: Bloomberg

One last thing, all of this data is completely divergent from the collapse in retail sales seen by Redbook data…

Source: Bloomberg

We wonder who’s right…

Source: Bloomberg

Bear in mind that all of these numbers are nominal.