Retail sales came in as expected.
Sales rose 0.6% month-over-month in September, according to the Commerce Department.
That’s right in line with economists’ expectations, and above last month’s 0.3% dip.
Excluding auto and gas sales, which can be volatile on a monthly basis, so-called core retail sales rose 0.3%.
Meanwhile, the retail sales control group, which excludes volatile items like cars, gas, food, and building materials and feeds directly into the government’s calculation of gross domestic product, rose 0.1% (0.4% forecast).
"So, people are eating out (0.8%), renovating their homes (1.4%), and buying cars (1.1%) - two months before the election. Yup, lots of election related uncertainty delaying discretionary spending," noted Neil Dutta of Renaissance Macro in commentary after the report.