The U.S. Department of Commerce issued its monthly report on the change in the U.S. retail and food sales during July 2011. This report adjusts for seasonal variances but controls for price changes. During July, the U.S. retail and food sales reached $390.4 billion, which is a slight increase of 0.5% compared with the previous month’s sales. This increase continues the upward trend in recent months as the U.S. retail sales rose by 0.1% in June. The gasoline stations sales were 23.6% higher in July than in June 2011. The July figures are also 8.5% higher than the U.S. retail sales recorded last year at July 2010.
This news provides some reassurance that the economic growth in the US didn’t reach a complete halt; this news coincides with the recent US employment report that showed a growth of 117,000 in non-farm employees.
The financial markets ended the week with light rises in the financial markets while the crude oil market also bounced back and gained some of the losses it had during the beginning of the week.
[ratings]
For more on this subject: