Retail Sales Up 0.3% In November, 18.2% YoY

The Census Bureau's Advance Retail Sales Report for November was released this morning. Headline sales came in at 0.26% month-over-month to two decimals and was below the Investing.com forecast of 0.8%. Core sales (ex Autos) came in at 0.34% MoM.

Here is the introduction from today's report:

Advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for November 2021, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $639.8 billion, an increase of 0.3 percent (±0.5 percent)* from the previous month, and 18.2 percent (±0.9 percent) above November 2020. Total sales for the September 2021 through November 2021 period were up 16.2 percent (±0.7 percent) from the same period a year ago. The September 2021 to October 2021 percent change was revised from up 1.7 percent (±0.5 percent) to up 1.8 percent (±0.2 percent).

Retail trade sales were up 0.2 percent (±0.4 percent)* from October 2021, and up 16.1 percent (±0.7 percent) above last year. Gasoline stations were up 52.3 percent (±1.6 percent) from November 2020, while food services and drinking places were up 37.4 percent (±3.9 percent) from last year. [view full report]

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: November headline and core saw increases, but were below forecasts, and control sales saw a MoM decrease and was also below forecasts.