Latest / Markets with Megan: A Quick Financial Markets Update / Retail Sales Rebound | S3 E168 | 09-16-26

Transcript

Retail Sales Rebound | S3 E168 | 09-16-26 · Markets with Megan: A Quick Financial Markets Update

• 0:00
  Megan Horneman: We got some pretty solid news on the consumer this morning.
• 0:03
  Megan Horneman: It's Wednesday, September the 16th, and this is Markets with Megan.
• 0:07
  Megan Horneman: If you like this podcast, you can subscribe to it, hit the alarm bell, share with your friends, family, colleagues, anybody who sees that economic data on a regular basis and what it means and wants to know what it means for the economy and for the in for the markets.
• 0:20
  Megan Horneman: So today let's dig into the report that we received this morning.
• 0:23
  Megan Horneman: Um, this was the retail sales report for August.
• 0:26
  Megan Horneman: And first I want to highlight that the retail sales report for July was very weak.
• 0:31
  Megan Horneman: Um we saw declines across the board when you look at the the sales numbers.
• 0:36
  Megan Horneman: But this for the month of August, we got a really nice rebound.
• 0:40
  Megan Horneman: At the headline level, um, retail sales grew 1.2%.
• 0:44
  Megan Horneman: A lot of that had to do with gasoline station sales.
• 0:47
  Megan Horneman: Obviously, they were up 3.1% for the month.
• 0:50
  Megan Horneman: Um, but if you look at some of the other details, if you take out food, energy, building materials, gasoline, it rose uh 1.4%.
• 1:00
  Megan Horneman: It was the biggest increase on a monthly basis that we've seen since September of 2024.
• 1:04
  Megan Horneman: So basically two years ago.
• 1:07
  Megan Horneman: Um, when we dig into those details, there were things motor vehicles, furniture, electronics, health and personal care, um, internet shopping, actually um eating and drinking places.
• 1:19
  Megan Horneman: When you look at clothing, sporting goods, all of these saw pretty big increases for the month.
• 1:25
  Megan Horneman: The internet sales rebounded 2.6%, but that was uh that was behind July's number that was pretty weak because remember, Amazon Prime Day was pulled forward this year.
• 1:35
  Megan Horneman: So it's basically kind of a give back from the prior month, but showing that the consumer is still out there spending.
• 1:41
  Megan Horneman: The one difficulty with this report is it's not inflation adjusted, and it's very difficult to see what's true additional spending versus what's just higher costs.
• 1:51
  Megan Horneman: We know inflation is a problem.
• 1:53
  Megan Horneman: Um, and some of these things, whether it's looking at electronics, motor vehicles, um, maybe it's even, you know, the building, um, sorry, motor vehicles, sporting goods, some of these have, you know, are impacted by the um inflation that we're seeing and also some of the supply chain disruptions because of the war.
• 2:12
  Megan Horneman: So part of this could be an inflation story as well.
• 2:16
  Megan Horneman: Now, the Fed's gonna meet here in about a half hour.
• 2:18
  Megan Horneman: We'll come back tomorrow morning and give you our assessment of the report because we'll want to see the press conference as well that the new chairman will come out with.
• 2:27
  Megan Horneman: That's all we have today.
• 2:28
  Megan Horneman: If you want a history of this podcast or a podcast, you can go to marketswithmaking.fm.
• 2:32
  Megan Horneman: Thank you.