by Calculated Risk on 2/12/2010 08:30:00 AM

On a monthly basis, retail sales increased 0.5% from December to January (seasonally adjusted), and sales were up 4.7% from January 2009 (easy comparison).

Click on graph for larger image in new window.

This graph shows retail sales since 1992. This is monthly retail sales, seasonally adjusted (total and ex-gasoline).

This shows that retail sales fell off a cliff in late 2008, and appear to have bottomed.

The red line shows retail sales ex-gasoline and shows the increase in final demand ex-gasoline has been sluggish.

The second graph shows the year-over-year change in retail sales since 1993.

Retail sales increased by 4.7% on a YoY basis. The year-over-year comparisons are easy now since retail sales collapsed in late 2008. Retail sales bottomed in December 2008.

Here is the Census Bureau report:

The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for January, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $355.8 billion, an increase of 0.5 percent (±0.5%)* from the previous month and 4.7 percent (±0.5%) above January 2009.
...
Gasoline stations sales were up 29.0 percent (±1.5%) from January 2009