US Retail Sales Are in, Already Boosting Market

US retail sales have come in for the month of August, and they show that the economy is beating analyst expectations. For August, retail sales were up an impressive and surprising 0.1%.

Core retail sales increased by 0.3% as well, which is making for a much rosier picture for the stock markets and crypto markets than what financial analysts anticipated. The crypto market is already gaining, with many major cryptos up 2-3% in the last few hours.

Business inventories rose too, up by 0.4% compared to July, indicating that the economy is showing signs of recovery and pointing toward decreasing inflation at the same time.

Manufacturing production went up by 0.9% right alongside the rest of the good news. Last month, auto sales accounted for a large part of the retail sector’s gains, but they declined in August. However, online sales rose so high that they managed to more than make up for the loss in auto sales.

More information has come in for July as well, which showed that retail sales were better than previously reported. All of this positive news should help create a healthy environment for the stock market for the short term, although incoming interest rate cuts could slow things back down.

The Markets React

The US stock market is not showing much of a reaction yet to the news, with the Dow Jones down 0.16% and the Nasdaq Composite gaining just 0.01%. The S&P 500 fell 0.16% as well, rounding out a not great-looking stock market. The stocks did briefly trade higher after the news but then settled down. After more time to process all of the figures, we may see some price jumps across the market.

The cryptocurrency market, on the other hand, is thriving off the news. Bitcoin hit an important milestone recouping its place at $60K, and other major cryptos are climbing fast.