美国8月零售销售环比增1.2%超预期

Mike McKee as well. Hey, Mike. Good morning, John. Well, if you're the Fed looking to increase interest rates, you wanna know how strong the economy is. The consumer holding up its part 1.2% increase in overall retail sales for the month of August. X auto is 1.4%, so even stronger. X autos and gasoline, 1.2%. The forecast for X autos and gasoline was just for a four tenths rise. The control group, 1.4%. That was expected to be up half a percent, and it was down four tenths.

Now August is back to school months, so it's not a complete surprise, but it does suggest that the consumer is much stronger than people have been anticipating, and that should give the Fed more confidence if it wants to raise rates today. Other indicator out today, import price indexes up by seven tenths of a percent on the month, ex petroleum up eight tenths of a price a percent. So what we're seeing there is some of the tariff bleed through is still happening in the economy, which, again, would put its thumb on the scale maybe for a rate increase.

I would imagine that we don't get too much of a move out of this in the markets, John, given everybody's position for 02:00, but, I'll be back in a second with, more details. Yeah. You get a second look at things. And, Mike, you're absolutely right. Not a big move off the back of this. Yields were lower. They stayed lower. We're down three at the front end. We were pretty elevated coming into this around $4.60 on twos.

Ten's still around 5%. Equity futures unmoved by the whole thing. Futures at the moment on the S and P 500 shaping up as follows. Still positive by about a third of 1% and near session highs. On the Nasdaq this morning, high by 0.6. But, Lisa, you put it together. Three month average on payrolls right now north of 70. Inflation higher than expected above target for the Federal Reserve and retail sales coming in pretty solidly for the month of August.

Even some of the negative numbers that we saw in the prior month in the month of July were revised to be less negative. So pretty much across the board positive. It's notable. I think we should sit on the fact that the market isn't moving more. Yes. The market was already priced for a a 25 basis point rate cut later this afternoon. But the fact that you're seeing nothing out of the equity market or the bond market after a pretty punchy, to use your words, beat on retail sales gives a sense of just how irrelevant all the data points other than CPI and on the margin some jobs data actually is.

People are saying, okay. We know it's solid. It doesn't matter how much. Where is CPI? Where are all the components? It has become an incredibly narrow market that only looks at a couple of different indicators. This is reinforced by some data we got from Bank of America earlier this week. They tracked their card spending data. Total card spending per household rose 4.5% year over year in August. Exclude gasoline, higher by 3.7% year over year.

That's some pretty strong numbers. We were talking to Gina Martin Adams earlier, and she said, so far, there is no evidence that the increase in oil prices has curtailed consumer spending, capacities. That's the data that we're seeing. And, frankly, that seems to be solidified by the fact that even, the overall comp sales seems to be on par. Question is going forward, how much resilience is there? And does the Fed take a look at this and say, okay.

But just wait because there are signs of a slowdown? Evidently, not many of them coming through. How much higher front end rates do you want there to be? 100 basis points spread right now between the Fed and the two year. This market's fully priced for a number of hikes right now. Again, going back to that, I wonder if the implication is the only place they can go is down. And if the Fed comes out and they say, well, you know, we consider another rate hike down the line, maybe that will be considered as a dovish surprise that could send front end yields tumbling.

I mean, it really... It shows where the bias right now in the market is. Pretty high Yeah. Going into this afternoon. Mike, you had a second look, buddy. What stands out? What stands out is the strength of the American consumer, the old saying, don't stand between an American and a cash register. There is strength everywhere. 14 different categories of goods are surveyed by the, government, and 13 of those were up and almost all of those fairly strongly.

The only one down, building materials. Grocery stores were up by half a percent. Health and personal care stores up nine tenths of a percent. Clothing stores up seven tenths. And, of course, as I mentioned, this was back to school time. And general merchandise stores up seven tenths. Now nonstore retailers saw a lot of strength, point 6%, and that's for August. The prime day was in June, and that had maybe distorted the numbers for July, but people are back to shopping online.

And food services and drinking places, which is the one service industry in this, and it is also the most discretionary spending up 1.2%. Gasoline usually distorts this. It was up 3.1%, but remember, as we said, ex autos and gas, stronger than anticipated up 1.2%. So Americans are still spending money, and some of the debate about whether the Fed should hold or not was what will you do to consumer spending? What will you do to the economy?

And right now, it looks like, the economy is hanging in there and probably able to absorb at least 25 basis points.