Friday, September 12, 2008

So much for US economic euphoria

With retail sales coming in at -.7%, the excitement of a better US growth path than Europe may come to an end. Second quarter numbers were higher given tax rebates but now that the cash has worked through the system, consumers are retrenching.

This retail slowdown is also in the face of a high PPI number. While it was expected that PPI should fall given the swift decline in commodity prices, survey numbers were still showing a 10% increase. PPI was lower than survey numbers at a sticky 9.6%, similar to last month.

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