by Calculated Risk on 1/15/2016 08:39:00 AM

On a monthly basis, retail sales were down 0.1% from November to December (seasonally adjusted), and sales were up 2.2% from December 2014.

From the Census Bureau report:

The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for December, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $448.1 billion, a decrease of 0.1 percent from the previous month, and 2.2 percent above December 2014. Total sales for the 12 months of 2015 were up 2.1 percent from 2014.

Click on graph for larger image.

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

Retail sales ex-gasoline was unchanged.

The second graph shows the year-over-year change in retail sales and food service (ex-gasoline) since 1993.

Retail and Food service sales ex-gasoline increased by 3.9% on a YoY basis (22.2% for all retail sales including gasoline).

The increase in December was below expectations of unchanged, however retailed sales for November were revised up from a 0.2% increase to a 0.4% increase. The headline number was weak, however sales ex-gasoline are up a solid 3.9% YoY.