神马文学网US retail sales fall 1.5% as car scheme ends
来源：百度文库 编辑：神马文学网 时间：2024/04/28 23:11:31
Retail sales in the US fell by 1.5 per cent last month, following the end of the popular "cash for clunkers" car subsidy programme, but the fall was less than the 2.1 per cent expected by Wall Street.
Once car sales are excluded, sales rose by 0.5 per cent, suggesting that spending is rising again, but only modestly.
The US Commerce Department said that car sales fell by 10.4 per cent in September after the "cash for clunkers" programme, providing subsidies of up to $4,500 on purchases of new fuel-efficient cars, ended on August 24. This represents the biggest monthly drop in car sales since August 2005.
Some economists expect car sales to weaken even further in coming months since some clunker buyers probably brought forward purchases that would otherwise have happened in the fourth quarter.Petrol sales for the month increased by 1.1 per cent, while food sales rose by 0.7 per cent. Excluding petrol, food and cars, sales increased by 0.4 per cent, building on the 0.6 per cent increase the month before.
Paul Dales, US Economist at the analysts Capital Economics, sounded a note of caution, noting that the increase in sales, excluding cars, is still fairly modest by normal standards. Sales remain 5.7 per cent below the September 2008 levels.
“With households' finances likely to remain constrained by falling employment, declining real incomes and tight credit, we doubt that consumption will continue to grow at such rates,” he said.
Separate figures showed that US import prices edged up by 0.1 per cent in September, marking the sixth increase in seven months as higher prices for non-petroleum goods offset falling costs of fuel imports. But it was less than the 0.3 per cent gain expected by economists surveyed by Dow Jones.
Export prices, dipped 0.3 per cent in September, pushed down by declining agricultural prices.