The retail sales data I was anxiously waiting for came out very well. So it's a bit hard to understand how it's happening. The market was expecting a 0.4 increase, but it came out at 1%. In other words, while the prices of many products went down in a deflationary environment, sales increased much more than expected. In other words, this is something that shows that there is no recession in America right now. This is encouraging data, how is it happening? Maybe consumers are rushing to discounts or there may be some confusion in the data that I can't understand. When we subtract automobile and petroleum sales from general retail sales, there is a 0.4 increase. This is slightly below last month, there was no expectation for this. On the other hand, employment data came out well. Ongoing unemployment is 1,864,000, the expectation was 1,880,000. The previous one was 1,871,000. In other words, new people have found jobs. Retail core sales were 0.4, the expectation was 0.1. Everything is better than expected.
Unemployment applications are 236,050, below the previous period, I'm talking about the last 4-week average. Unemployment applications this week were 227,000, the expectation was 236,000. There is no problem in that context. The trouble continues on the production side. Philadelphia has a production index, it came in at -7, it was 5.4. There is already a problem with the production PMI, but I always say that America is a service country, so what happens on the services side is more important. That is why there is a problem with all the production-related numbers in the Philadelphia survey. There is no problem with Capex. In other words, manufacturing companies are making serious capital expenditures. But there is a problem on the business side. New orders are below last month, inflation is a little bit above expectations, in this structure we call Philly Fed Prices Paid.
It was 0.3 in the retail control group, 0.9 the previous month. I honestly don't know what this means, but as a result, retail sales increased by 2.66% year-on-year and 1% month-on-month. Of course, a 2.66% increase year-on-year means there is an increase in the current inflation level, but at lower prices. So it seems like Americans rushed to the discounts. If we look at the preliminary stock market data at the end of this data, Dow Jones is up 0.8, S&P 500 is up 0.73, US Tech 100, which is actually Nasdaq 100, is up 0.94%. Finally, small stocks have reacted 2.05%. An investment of mine that I have had a really hard time with for a long time is reacting positively. Because the market is currently saying there is no recession, we have already dealt with inflation, sales are continuing, and the FED will also lower interest rates. What more do you want, the data says. At least that's how it is, but I'm still a little confused. Still, it's useful to see that the data is very positive. Let's see what the coming days will bring.
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