The Dow Jone and the S&P 500 take the path of declines at the start of the day thanks to the weak feedback from US retail sales in July, weaker than expected, with a decline of 1.1% on a monthly basis (consensus was -0.3%), mainly due to weaker car sales. Ex-auto retail sales fell by 0.4% (consensus was + 0.2%). “With the reopening of the economy there are more options to spend money on. Retail sales represent only 40-45% of total consumer spending and are still up 17.2% on pre-pandemic levels. some rebalancing towards services is to be expected and therefore does not mean that overall consumer spending will inevitably decrease “, comments James Knightley, chief international economist at Ing.
After the first few minutes of trading, the Dow Jones lost over 270 points down by 0.75%, while the S&P 500 fell by 0.55%. Yesterday both had updated the historical tops.
Among the big names on the New York Stock Exchange, Home Depot dropped 3% after missing Wall Street’s estimates for same-store sales in the United States for the first time in seven quarters. On the other hand, WalMart rose (+ 0.58%) which increased its annual sales forecasts in the United States. However, Walmart’s pace of online growth slowed dramatically to 6% from 37% in the first quarter.