Retail sales take the steepest fall in 2 years
In June a lot of consumers did not spend money on cars, furniture or building supplies and thus sales declined very sharply. Other retail sales also fell 0.4%, which was worse than the 0.2% rise that was expected. Over all this was the sharpest amount in almost 2 years. These sales fell by 0.9% last month, which was the biggest drop since August 2005. It was actually a much larger decline than economists had been expecting. Therefore new worries have arose about consumer spending, which is closely watched since it accounts for two-thirds of total economic activity.
Of course, this not only affects the economy, it also puts people’s jobs at stake and makes you want to re-think the stocks that you invest in. As such, none of this can be considered good news. For this reason economists are truly hoping that retail sales will rise throughout the month of July. However, if this does not happen, then there could be some serious repercussions felt by everyone as people may be laid off and stock brokers feel a pinch in their pocket books.
