Retail sales rose 0.6% in August

Yahoo Finance's Emily McCormick joins The First Trade with Alexis Christoforous and Brian Sozzi to discuss August retail sales and more.

Video Transcript

ALEXIS CHRISTOFORUS: I want to bring in Yahoo Finance's Emily McCormick for more on the retail sales report. Hey, Emily. You had a chance to look through this, so what were people buying in August?

EMILY MCCORMICK: Well, Alexis, taking a look at the Commerce Department's August retail sales report, we had food service locations showing a 4.7% monthly increase in sales that extended a 4.1% increase in July. So we are starting to see diners coming back to restaurants and bars with stay-in-place orders and lockdowns getting rolled back over the course of the summer.

Now, we also saw a lot of strength here in clothing stores. Those posted a 2.9% monthly increase in sales in August. And we also saw building material dealer sales rise 2% to affirm these strong trends that we've been seeing in quarterly results for companies like Home Depot, Lowe's, and other peer home improvement giants.

Now, I do want to point out a couple pockets of weakness in the August report. We saw grocery store sales falling by 1.6% to give back some of the gains that we saw earlier on in the spring at the beginning of the pandemic, as customers had been pantry-loading and stocking up in light of those stay-in-place orders.

Now, we also saw some weakness here in sporting goods and hobby stores. Those monthly sales falling another 5.7% in August after a 5.3% drop in July. And also, some flatness here that we saw in non-store retailers. So that captures e-commerce sales. Those were unchanged month-over-month, so seeing those hold steady after rising to elevated levels during the pickup that we saw in that category during the pandemic. Alexis.