January US Retail Sales are Down

In nominal terms, Retail Sales might be up 0.3%, if you can trust those figures.

However, the picture changes if you deduct CPI. If you use the US Government CPI of 4.1%, real sales are down to -3.8%.

If you use the CPI value of Shadow Stats, which estimates CPI at around 7.5%, then Retail Sales are down -7.2%! That makes more sense. I can not see how Retail Sales can grow when business is scaling back. Shedding more light on this, Mike Shedlock asks the question, Does The Shopping Center Economic Model Work?

The hype reflected on the stock markets over statistics like this, leaves me cold. Is this a sucker trap being used by big players to offload shares onto the next fool ?

I just can not see any valid reason for equities to go up in the current local and global economic environment.