The last of this week’s top-tier US macro data found retail sales disappointing on the headline, even as a key underlying measure easily topped estimates, underscoring the “resilient” characterization of the incorrigible American consumer.

Nominal spending rose 0.4% last month (0.449% unrounded), according to the release, slower than the 0.6% headline pace economists expected, but healthy all the same. The prior two months were revised to show even stronger gains than the already-robust initial estimates.

Traders — the savvy ones anyway — will look right past that to the control group print which, at 0.7%, was much brisker than expected.

Economists expected just 0.4% from the control group. The actual readout nearly matched the highest estimate. The ex-autos increase, 0.4%, was a marginal miss.

Overall, 10 of 13 categories showed a gain in the report. Notably, the restaurants and bars line item wasn’t among them.

The control group beat bodes well for Q4 GDP tracking, which was already robust. The Atlanta Fed’s closely-watched estimate pointed to a 2.7% expansion in Q4 as of the last update, on January 9.

Meanwhile, headline jobless claims (initial filers) topped estimates, but remained subdued and nowhere near worrying levels. 217,000 was up 14,000 from the prior week’s 11-month low print.

The four-week moving average ticked down to 212,750, the lowest since April.

Continuing claims for the week to January 4 were 1.859 million, down 18,000 from the prior week’s upwardly-revised level, and well below estimates.

All in all, Thursday’s US data painted a picture of a consumer who’s still spending (nominally, anyway) and a labor market that looks exactly nothing like a recession.