U.S. retail sales dropped by the most in nearly two years in January, likely weighed down by frigid temperatures, wildfires and motor vehicle shortages, suggesting a sharp slowdown in economic growth early in the first quarter.
But the larger-than-expected and across the board decline in retail sales reported by the Commerce Department on Friday probably does not reflect a material shift in consumer spending as it also followed four straight months of hefty increases.
A sharp upward revision to December’s sales took some of the sting from the report. Economists also noted that it was difficult to strip out large seasonal swings from the data at the turn of the year, which was also evident in the January consumer inflation report.
it was the weather, fires, and car shortages. yup. youbetcha. the impending, and now fully-realized and ongoing, doom had absolutely nothing to do with it.
Well yeah those are all parts of the doom.
Whoa full-realized ongoing doom! Guess it’s not getting worse then whew
After the election but before the inauguration we bought a replacement refrigerator before we absolutely needed to because the one we were looking at was made in Mexico. It seems kind of conspiratorial to buy it when, at that time, Trump was just muttering about tariffs on Canada and Mexico. Now it looks like good forethought and planning.
My dad also moved up his plans to buy a Ford Maverick specifically because of the Mexico tariffs. (They finally made the AWD Hybrid version he wanted to replace his old Ranger that has 240k miles on it.)
With the number of parts and final assembly done in Mexico, it would have probably increased the price of the truck by more than 10k.I went ahead and replaced my furnace that I’d been putting off doing for as long as possible, knowing it needed replaced soon before it failed, but trying to get another winter out it. Went ahead and pulled the trigger in January before tariffs.
Yeah, we’re in Canada. I made a big purchase because I was expecting tariffs to tank the Canadian dollar.
I’m happy to say that neither of those things have happened. Yet.
Get ready for the Canadian dollar to be worth more than the US dollar.
looks over to my jar of loonies and toonies
i might just have a retirement fund after all.
It is. At best the tariffs didn’t happen and you wouldn’t have been saving money, so it makes sense to plan for the worst.
I’ve been thinking about a new car, but I did the math and even with a price hike it would make financial sense for me to wait.
What’s weird about this is that lots of people and especially businesses were rushing to make purchases and stock up or replace old appliances ahead of expected tariffs. So theoretically you would have expected January to see increased sales.
Saving the acorns for the upcoming economic winter
I expect it to be (more or less) permanent
