Retail Sales Down 0.6% In November, Worse Than Forecast

The Census Bureau’s Advance Retail Sales Report for November was released this morning. Headline sales came in at -0.58% month-over-month and was below the Investing.com forecast of -0.1%. Core sales (ex Autos) came in at -0.19% MoM.

Here is the introduction from today’s report:

Advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for November 2022, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $689.4 billion, down 0.6 percent (±0.5 percent) from the previous month, but up 6.5 percent (±0.7 percent) above November 2021. Total sales for the September 2022 through November 2022 period were up 7.7 percent (±0.5 percent) from the same period a year ago. The September 2022 to October 2022 percent change was unrevised from up 1.3 percent (±0.2 percent).

Retail trade sales were down 0.8 percent (±0.5 percent) from October 2022, but up 5.4 percent (±0.7 percent) above last year. Gasoline stations were up 16.2 percent (±1.6 percent) from November 2021, while food services and drinking places were up 14.1 percent (±3.0 percent) from last year.

The chart below is a log-scale snapshot of retail sales since the early 1990s. The two exponential regressions through the data help us to evaluate the long-term trend of this key economic indicator.

The year-over-year percent change provides another perspective on the historical trend. Here is the headline series.

Core Sales

Here is the year-over-year version of Core Retail Sales.

“Control” Purchases

The next two charts illustrate retail sales “Control” purchases, which is an even more “Core” view of retail sales. This series excludes Motor Vehicles & Parts, Gasoline, Building Materials as well as Food Services & Drinking Places. The popular financial press typically ignores this series, but it’s a more consistent and reliable reading of the economy.

Here is the same series year-over-year.

For a better sense of the reduced volatility of the “Control” series, here is a YoY overlay with the headline retail sales.

Bottom Line: Both November headline and core were down from October and worse than forecast.

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Editor’s Note: The summary bullets for this article were chosen by Seeking Alpha editors.