The US consumer remains strong as indicated by this morning’s release of US retail sales data for the month of June. That data point came in at 1% versus an expectation for .8%. And last month’s -.3% that caught so many by surprise was revised up to -.1%.
This does a couple of things, key of which is it broke the trend of falling retail sales data that had shown since January. And with this being such an early look, this is likely a factor that the Fed would consider when evaluating rate hikes. With the US consumer absorbing higher prices and continuing to spend, this could keep the track on a more-aggressive track than had we seen a continued fall in retail sales.
