The Census Bureau's Advance Retail Sales Report for November was released this morning. Headline sales came in at 0.2% month-over-month to one decimal and was slightly better than the Investing.com forecast of 0.1%. Core sales (ex Autos) came in at 0.23% MoM (to two decimals). Revisions were made to the last two months.

Here is the introduction from today's report:

Advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for November 2018, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $513.5 billion, an increase of 0.2 percent (±0.5 percent)* from the previous month, and 4.2 percent (±0.5 percent) above November 2017. Total sales for the September 2018 through November 2018 period were up 4.3 percent (±0.5 percent) from the same period a year ago. The September 2018 to October 2018 percent change was revised from up 0.8 percent (±0.5 percent) to up 1.1 percent (±0.2 percent).

Retail trade sales were up 0.3 percent (±0.5 percent)* from October 2018, and 4.0 percent (±0.5 percent) above last year. Nonstore Retailers were up 10.8 percent (±1.4 percent) from November 2017, while Gasoline Stations were up 8.2 percent (±1.6 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. Note that the current level is above both highlighted values at the start of recessions since the inception of this series in the early 1990s.

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

Bottom Line: October sales showed an increase month over month and beat forecasts. When FRED publishes their data, we'll take a closer look at Real Retail Sales.