United States: Modest Growth in Sales and Manufacturing

Retail sales rose 0.3% in August after falling 0.4% in July (revised down from 0.0%). Excluding motor vehicles and gasoline, sales rose 0.3% in both July and August. Industrial production fell 0.2% in August after adding 0.5% in July. August's retail sales growth is satisfactory, but nothing more. Real consumption should be fairly weak in light of last month's inflation figure (gasoline aside). Industrial production isn't painting a particularly rosy picture of US growth either.