US retail sales down 0.4% in February
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In February, retail sales in the United States decreased by 0.4% compared to the previous month and amounted to $697.9 billion. Such data was published today, March 15, by the US Department of Commerce (.pdf). Analysts polled by Reuters had expected a 0.3% decline in February. Compared to February 2022, sales increased by 5.4%.
Most of all in February of this year, sales of furniture and household goods (by 2.5%), cars and accessories for them (by 1.8%), as well as sales in restaurants and cafes (by 2.2%) decreased. Some categories showed growth: sales of food and beverages increased by 0.5%, health and hygiene products by 0.9%.
Morgan Stanley Economists Expect More decrease in sales in the coming months. In their opinion, “the labor market continues to cool, households are becoming more careful in spending, spending less and less excess savings and preferring to spend more on services than on goods.” US consumer inflation in February slowed down from 6.4% to 6%, that is, remained at a high level, declining more slowly than analysts expected.
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