US: Focus on retail sales – ABN AMRO

According to analysts at ABN AMRO, today’s US retail sales figures for October are expected to confirm that personal consumer spending remained strong in the third quarter and that this was still the case as we entered Q4.

Key Quotes

“While consumers received less fiscal stimulus than corporations, the tight labor market continues to support them. Therefore, the US economy, often seen as the powerhouse of the world economy, is still going strong.”

“We should not be fooled by strong coincident and lagging indicators while a key leading indicator, the slope of the yield curve, suggests that this will not last. Especially now that the Fed has become overconfident and seems willing to invert the yield curve, which historically has been a harbinger of recession.”