Expectations are high for November US retail sales

Expectations are high for November retail sales, due today. Maybe too high. More than one-fifth of all retail sales are autos and, in unit terms, they fell by half a percentage point in November. Nor were Black Friday sales especially strong, according to most reports. Odds are the 0.3% (MoM, sa) rise that consensus expects falls short: look for a 0.2% rise, perhaps less. 

More important than November per se is the broader weakness of the past few months. Both headline and ex-autos sales growth has been zero since July and on-year sales growth has drifted south to post-crisis lows. Headline growth stood at 1.7% YoY in October and, even if the bullish consensus about November proves correct, it will fall further to 1.6% YoY. Control group sales - which exclude gas, autos, food and home improvement supplies - are faring a bit better with on-year growth of 2.6% YoY. Even this, though, is the lowest since the subprime crisis, save for a brief weather-related sales freeze in early-2014. 

It's not a great setting for Fed lift-off expected next week. So officials will go out of their way to say they are not the Grinch stealing Christmas. Whether the kids believe them remains to be seen.