The Census Bureau's Advance Retail Sales Report for January was released this morning. Headline sales came in at 5.3% month-over-month to one decimal and was well above the Investing.com forecast of 1.1%. Core sales (ex Autos) came in at 5.9% MoM.

Here is the introduction from today's report:

Statement Regarding COVID-19 Impact: The Census Bureau continues to monitor response and data quality and has determined that estimates in this release meet publication standards. For more information, see COVID-19 FAQs.

Advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for January 2021, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $568.2 billion, an increase of 5.3 percent (±0.5 percent) from the previous month, and 7.4 percent (±0.7 percent) above January 2020. Total sales for the November 2020 through January 2021 period were up 4.6 percent (±0.5 percent) from the same period a year ago. The November 2020 to December 2020 percent change was revised from down 0.7 percent (±0.5 percent) to down 1.0 percent (±0.3 percent).

Retail trade sales were up 5.1 percent (±0.5 percent) from December 2020, and 10.8 percent (±0.7 percent) above last year. Nonstore retailers were up 28.7 percent (±1.8 percent) from January 2020, while sporting goods, hobby, musical instrument, and book stores were up 22.5 percent (±4.0 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 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: January headline and core sales were up and better than forecasts. Later today, we'll take a closer look at Real Retail Sales.