Customers shop at a Walmart Supercenter on February 20, 2024 in Hallandale Beach, Florida.
Joe Reddell | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Consumer spending rebounded in February from a decline in January, helped by leap days. But even after correcting for the impact of the extra spending day, sales still grew well.
CNBC/NRF Retail Monitor rose 1.06% in February excluding auto and gas spending, based on actual credit card spending data from Affinity Solutions. When excluding restaurants, the core indicator of retail monitoring, the index also rose 0.95%.
Excluding the impact of leap days, sales rose 0.4%, less than half the unadjusted increase but still above January’s 0.2% decline. Excluding restaurants, the leap day-adjusted retail sales monitor rose 0.3%, compared with January’s 0.04% gain.
“While the future path of interest rates and inflation remains uncertain, it is clear that a strong job market and rising real wages will continue to support spending,” said Matt Shea, president of the National Retail Federation.
Look at individual departments that have not been adjusted for leap days:
- After seasonally adjusting, online and other non-store sales increased 0.8% from the previous quarter and an annual increase of 18.08%.
- Sporting goods, hobbies, music and bookstores grew by 2.29% seasonally adjusted from the previous quarter and 13.67% from the same period last year.
- After seasonally adjusting, health and personal care product stores increased by 0.96% quarterly and 11.18% annually.
- Clothing and accessories stores increased by 0.51% quarterly, and the unadjusted annual increase was 8.05%.
The industry data is also affected by leap days, and the overall index may diverge more than usual from the Census retail data this month.
Unlike survey-based data collected by the Census Bureau, Retail Monitor uses real, anonymized credit and debit card purchase data compiled by Affinity and is not revised monthly or annually.
Economists expect Thursday’s Census retail sales report to show a 0.8% increase, completely reversing January’s 0.8% decline. So, if this forecast is accurate, and February’s CNBC/NRF monitoring suggests that January is not the start of the long-awaited slowdown in consumer spending.
