Nominal spending across the world’s largest economy expanded at the briskest pace in more than three years last month, US government data released on Tuesday showed.
The 1.7% month-to-month increase on headline retail sales came courtesy of what, if you didn’t know the circumstances, would appear as a mind-boggling jump in gas station receipts.
That line — the gas line — in Tuesday’s report showed a 15.5% jump from February.
As the figure above shows, that’s the largest sequential increase on record in data back to 1992.
What can you say? “Only Trump.” Only Donald Trump starts a war with the potential to trigger the largest-ever surge in gas prices just ahead of driving season in America, during a mid-term year.
Stripping out gas stations, retail sales rose a far more pedestrian 0.6%. But that’s still respectable. Indeed, the release suggested underlying spending held up just fine in March despite the onerous imperative of dedicating more disposable income to fill-ups.
As the figure shows, control group sales rose 0.7%, more than triple the expected advance and the best read since August. That’ll help Q1 GDP estimates.
Moreover, January’s control group print was revised to show a 0.5% gain, more than double the initially-reported advance, and February’s readout was bumped up too.
As BMO’s Ian Lyngen noted, the three-month average annualized pace for control group sales is now 4.8%, up a full 2ppt from where the same metric stood in December.
All in all, this was a strong release. It’ll be a relief to macro watchers (or those not rooting for a recession anyway) that underlying consumption wasn’t derailed by a historic jump in gas prices. Only one of 13 major categories showed a decline in Tuesday’s report.
Perfect time to cut rates.
As proof that our economy is doing well, I have been noticing that our country doesn’t have enough first class seats on commercial airlines. I never fly first or even business class, however, because I travel a lot, I automatically get to choose a preferred economy seat without paying extra (comes with extra leg room- which is nice but not really appreciated, because I’m 5ft 2in).
Anyway, yesterday was the second time in the last few weeks that someone sat next to me that started complaining that they had purchased a last minute ticket and that there were not any first class tickets remaining to be purchased. Therefore, they were not happy about sitting in economy plus. Granted, it was a long flight. I gave them some good restaurant tips to compensate for their discomfort. 🙂
What I want to know is where are the gas pump stickers of Trump pointing to the price captioned, “I did that!”
I’ve wondered the same thing. Those Biden stickers were all over the place down South a few years ago.
Check Etsy. Lots of different versions available.
Democrats are fragmented and unorganized. Pathetic weiners.
Seen them on gas pumps in the Northeast. Laughed to myself – that did not take long. The goofy “what me worry!?!” face Trump had on was almost perfect.
I think this is mostly inflation.