Yahoo Finance’s Emily McCormic breaks down the latest retail sales numbers.

Video Transcript

MYLES UDLAND: Beginning with a busy morning in economic data. Retail sales for the month of March crossed the tape just about 30 minutes ago. Yahoo Finance's Emily McCormick joins us with the details on that report, Emily.

EMILY MACCORMICK: Myles, an extremely strong print on consumer spending for the month of March. We saw retail sales surge by the most since May 2020. Now, two really be contributors to this where stimulus checks. Of course, those $1,400 direct checks going to most Americans as well as those easing social distancing standards at the beginning of spring.

Now specifically, retail sales jumped 9.8% month over month in March, the Commerce Department said today. And this is greater than the 5.8 rise that had been expected. And it did reverse the 2.7% monthly decline that we saw in retail sales for February. Most economists had chalked up that brief drop to some payback after a jump in spending from the last round of stimulus checks spending earlier on in the year in January.

Now, taking a look year over year, retail sales were up a staggering 27.7% over March 2020. That was the only point of the pandemic of course, in the US. And taking a look by category for March this year, the categories that really saw strength point to a pickup in consumer discretionary spending. For example, we saw sporting goods, hobby and bookstores posting the biggest monthly increase at 23.5% followed closely by clothing and clothing accessories stores with a rise of 18.3%.

We should note that clothing store sales have now more than doubled their retail sales from levels a year ago. Then finally, also want to highlight motor vehicle and parts dealers with sales surging by more than 15% month over month. And food services and drinking places with sales up 13.4% month over month.

So again, these categories, Myles, really pointing to a pickup in the leisure hospitality space, in retail, and department stores and clothing, and all pointing to the surge in economic activity we've been waiting for for the spring.

MYLES UDLAND: Yeah, and of course, a reminder to our viewers who certainly know, but just always worth pointing out. March is in the first quarter. So we'll see some of those Q1 tracking data come higher. We're looking for that first estimate of Q1 GDP later on this.