Just caught the retail sales numbers from a few months back and they're pretty interesting. January actually came in softer than expected - sales dropped 0.2% when economists were betting on a 0.4% decline. Auto sales took the hit though, sliding 0.9%, so if you strip that out, january retail stayed basically flat. That surprised me a bit since the consensus was looking for a small 0.1% uptick ex-autos. Apparently winter weather and gas price spikes had people holding back on spending, which makes sense. But here's the thing - some areas like misc retailers and non-store (online stuff probably) actually did pretty well that january. By February, core retail bounced back with a 0.3% gain. So yeah, january looked weak on the surface but it wasn't as bad as initial fears, and the rebound suggests consumers were just being cautious, not broke.