The November 2014 Retail Sales report shows retail sales increased 0.7% for the month.  This is when gasoline prices have plunged, pulling down retail gas sales.  October retail sales were revised upward by 0.2 percentage points to a 0.5% increase.  Retail sales have now increased 5.1% from a year ago.  November's increase was due to auto sales, although other retail sales categories increased.  Without autos & parts sales, retail sales still increased 0.5%.   Retail sales are reported by dollars, not by volume with price changes removed.

Retail trade sales are retail sales minus food and beverage services and these sales increased 0.7% for the month..  Retail trade sales includes gas.

Total retail sales are $449.3 billion for November.  Below are the retail sales categories monthly percentage changes.  These numbers are seasonally adjusted.  General Merchandise includes super centers, Costco and so on.

Below is a graph of just auto sales.  Kind of amazing, but motor vehicle sales have increased 9.5% for the year.  Autos have been going strong for some time now.

Below are the retail sales categories by dollar amounts.   As we can see, autos rule retail sales.  We also see online retailers continue to expand.

Graphed below are weekly regular gasoline prices, so one can see what happened to gas prices in November.  Believe this or not, but gasoline station sales are down -2.1% from a year ago.

The below pie chart breaks down the monthly seasonally adjusted retail sales by category as a percentage of total November sales by dollar amounts.  One can see how dependent monthly retail sales are on auto sales by this pie chart.  We also see non-traditional retailers making strong grounds on traditional general merchandise stores and almost equal to gasoline sales in terms of importance.

Retail sales correlates to personal consumption, which in turn is about 70% of GDP growth.  Yet GDP has inflation removed from it's numbers.  This is why Wall Street jumps on these retail sales figures.  Below is the graph of retail sales in real dollars, or adjusted for inflation, so one gets a sense of volume versus price increases.  Below is the annualized monthly percentage change in real retail sales, monthly, up to October 2014.  This is a crude estimate since CPI is used instead of individual category inflation indexes.  The below graph can give some insight as to what consumer spending might shape up to be for Q4 2014.

Below is a graph of real PCE against real retail sales, quarterly, up to Q3.   See how closely the two track each other?   PCE almost looks like a low pass filter, an averaging, removal of "spikes", of real retail sales. Here are our overviews for PCE.  Here are our overviews of GDP.

Retail sales are not adjusted for price increases, not reported in real dollars.  Real economic growth adjusts for inflation.  Retail sales has variance, margins of error, and is often revised as more raw data comes into the U.S. Department of Commerce (Census division).  For example, this report has an error margin of ±0.5%.  Data is reported via surveys, and is net revenues of retail stores, outlets.  Online retail net revenues are asked in a separate survey of large retail companies (big box marts).  This is also the advanced report.  To keep the monthly nominal percentage changes in perspective, below is the graph of monthly percentage changes of retail sales since 2008.

For the three month moving average, from September to November in comparison to the June through August average, retail sales have only increased by1.0%.  Gasoline looks like the culprit still as the bottom has fallen out of prices.  ;The retail sales three month moving average in comparison to a year ago are up 4.7%.  Overall as shown the below graph of quarterly annualized retail sales percentage change, up to Q3 2014. &nsp;We believe gas prices have much to do with things.

Seasonal adjustments are aggregate and based on events like holidays associated with shopping, i.e. the Christmas rush.  Advance reports almost always are revised the next month as more raw sales data is collected by the Census.  In other words, do not get married to these figures, they will surely be revised.  With that, Zerohedge reports November's seasonal adjustment is the 2nd largest in history.  We note that gas prices were collapsing at the last large seasonal adjustment in November retail sales.  Here is our retail sales topic category.

Here are past retail sales overviews, unrevised.