Why anyone with an objective process would get excited about today's Retail Sales report as new and bullish information is beyond me.

Maybe it’s a slow newsday, but the hype on the tape right now on retail sales numbers is pretty big. One of Kudlow’s guests is proclaiming that ‘the recession is finally over’. Maybe that’s true – but to base it on these numbers is irresponsible. Both the S&P and the MVR took off upon the release of the report.  The numbers are really right in line to anyone paying attention to other datapoints in the market. Are they a bounce off depressed numbers from last year? Yes. Is the 2-year trend slowly improving? Yes. But is trendline consumption still sub 0%? Yes. Remember that Oct-Dec of last year is when both consumption and retail sales fell apart. We need to see yy retail sales growth of 7% in both November and December in order to be flat on a 2-year basis.  In other words, we need some big numbers to sustain a lackluster underlying trend. If you want to get excited about that, be my guest...

Gov't Retail Sales: Why The Excitement? - 1yr

Gov't Retail Sales: Why The Excitement? - 2yr