Core retail sales as expected with downward revisions/Firing's low, hiring's slow/Import prices/ECB

Core retail sales for November were about as expected with the 2 tenths monthly beat offset by a 2 tenths downward revision to October. And September was revised down by one tenth.

After declines seen in October, sales for autos, furniture, clothing, sporting goods and online retail rebounded. As heard from Home Depot and Lowe’s, sales of building materials were down for a 3^rd straight month. Department store sales continue to remain weak, falling too for a 3^rd month. The star of the show remains sales at restaurants and bars, higher by 1.6% m/o/m and by 11.5% y/o/y.

As heard from a variety of retailers, sales of health/personal care remained strong, higher by .9% m/o/m and 11.1% y/o/y. Supermarket sales grew by .2% m/o/m and by .8% y/o/y.

Bottom line, as stated, retail sales over the past 3 months were about as forecasted and we thus shouldn’t see any change to GDP estimates.