 "Food and grocery shopping, retail stores")
US retail sales dropped by the most in 10 months in December, weighed down by shortages and spiralling Covid-19 infections, which could temper expectations that economic growth accelerated sharply in the fourth quarter.
Americans started their holiday shopping in October to avoid empty shelves, which pulled sales away from December. Sales could weaken further in January as raging coronavirus infections, driven by the Omicron variant, limit consumer traffic to places like restaurants and bars.
“The weakness in December was likely more about the timing of spending than the level,” said Scott Hoyt, a senior economist at Moody’s Analytics in West
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
