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The National Retail Federation says it saw the expected shift to digital by consumers during the Black Friday to Cyber Monday shopping period, For the first time ever, the number

Retail sales and food-services spending posted a strong gain in September.The September gain was the fifth in a row.Core retail sales, which exclude motor vehicles and gasoline retailers, posted a 1.5 percent gain for the month.Unit vehicle sales, reported earlier in the month, have also staged a very solid recovery.Results across the various categories of retailers were mostly positive in September.

Industrial production has a 100-year-plus record of measuring the production side of the economy.Similarly, retail sales have a 70-year-plus record of measuring the consumption side of the economy.In September, both surprised, as production failed to confirm leading indicators and declined, while sales boomed despite the ending of emergency Congressional assistance.I am inclined to take both with extra grains of salt as potentially impacted by pandemic-related seasonal distortions.

US retail sales are incredibly strong, rising 1.9% month-on-month versus 0.8% consensus.Strength was broad based with 12 out of 13 categories reporting a rise.Nonetheless, we shouldn't take too much away from what was a very good report, which saw sporting goods up 5.7%, health spending up 1.7% and eating/drinking out up 2.1%.

Among the largest names in retail, as represented by the MVIS U.S. Listed Retail 25 Index, the differences between winners and losers this year is dramatic.The difference separating many of the names into winners and losers is their ability to leverage not only ecommerce, but all channels of marketing to facilitate engagement with their brand.

Americans cautiously returned to the doctor’s office for non-essential medical procedures like knee replacements in the third quarter but Wall Street expectations into the end of the year may be too high.