US: Yearly sales up in January despite consumers holding back

After a busy holiday season, consumers in the US seemed to pull back their costs in January, despite spending being up on a yearly basis, reflecting a strengthened market overall.

This is according to new figures collected in the CNBC/NRF Retail Monitor, which revealed that total retail sales across the US for January, excluding automobiles and gasoline, were down 1.07 percent month-over-month.

This significantly contrasted a year-over-year increase of 5.44 percent, which was down on the yearly uptick of 7.24 percent in December.

Speaking on the data, National Retail Federation (NRF) president and CEO, Matthew Shay, said that despite the monthly decline, these annual increases “reflect overall consumer strength as a strong job market and wage gains above the rate of inflation continue to support spending”.

Shay continued: “We’re seeing a ‘choiceful’ and value-conscious consumer who is rotating spending across goods and services and essentials and non-essentials, boosting some sectors while causing challenges in others.”

As such, January sales rose in seven out of nine reported categories on a yearly basis, led by clothing and accessories stores. For this category, month-over-month sales were down 2.96 percent, while YoY, sales rose 7.67 percent.

This was compared to YoY increases for general merchandise stores (7.53 percent), grocery and beverage stores (5.65 percent) and sporting goods, hobby, music and book stores (2.82 percent).