You'll Never Guess The One Thing That Made ... - Business Insider

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Earlier we mentioned how retail sales growth of 0.5% was well ahead of expectations of 0.3%.

Excluding autos the gap was even better: 0.6% vs. 0.2%.

What drove the strong performance?

From Goldman:

Retail sales increased by 0.5% (month-over-month), more than expected. Sales ex-autos increased by 0.6%, and "core" sales (ex-autos, gasoline and building materials) also gained 0.6%. The better than expected results suggest upside risk to our 2.0% Q4 GDP forecast. Large gains in sales for electronics and "non-store" retailers (online shopping) suggest that the introduction of Apple's latest iPhone likely accounted for much of the upside surprise to core retail sales.

Wild.

As for the rest of the data:

The October Producer Price Index (PPI) declined by 0.3% (month-over-month), a larger drop than the consensus had expected. The core PPI was unchanged, in contrast to consensus expectations for a 0.1% increase. The core PPI was affected by volatility in vehicle prices, which often occurs in the month of October due to the roll-out of new auto-year vehicles. Excluding passenger cars and light trucks, the core PPI likely increased by about 0.1%.?

The Empire index rises 9 points (from -8.48 to 0.61) in November, beating expectations which looked for a 6.5 point increase. The composition of the report, however, remains weak: new orders decline by around 2 points to -2.07 and the employment index weakens by almost 7 points to -3.66. Shipments increase by around 4 points to 9.43 and inventories decline 3 points to -12.20.

SEE ALSO: A fantastic overview of the economy right now >

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/iphone-4s-drove-the-retail-sales-beat-2011-11

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