Just caught the latest Commerce Department report on US retail sales for January and the numbers came in better than feared. Sales only dipped 0.2% instead of the expected 0.4% drop, so not as bad as some were bracing for. The weakness mainly came from auto dealers getting hit hard with a 0.9% slide, but when you strip out cars, US retail sales basically held flat. That's actually what surprised me - ex-auto numbers were supposed to tick up 0.1%, so that's a miss. Michael Pearce from Oxford Economics made a good point though: the winter weather clearly dragged things down that month, and now we've got gas prices jumping because of geopolitical tensions. That's going to weigh on consumer spending. On the bright side, department stores and specialty retailers took a hit, but miscellaneous retailers and online sales picked up steam. Core retail sales excluding autos and gas actually managed 0.3% growth, which is the silver lining here. So yeah, US retail sales weren't as disastrous as feared, but the trend still looks soft heading into the rest of the quarter.