As we warned in our preview last night, the almost omniscient folk at BofA warned, ‘brace’ for a blowout retail sales print this morning, forecasting a huge 0.8% MoM rise in spending (well above the 0.2% consensus) all due to seasonal adjustments.

BofA was mostly right with all the retail sales cohorts coming in hot – headline +0.4% (+0.3% exp), ex-autos +0.5% MoM (+0.1% exp), and most notably the control group (which flows into the GDP calc) +0.7% MoM (+0.3% exp).

Headline retail sales MoM beat was not enough top keep the YoY print improving as it dropped to +1.7% YoY – the weakest since January…

On an unadjusted basis, Retail sales fell a shocking 7.5% MoM…

This was the biggest positive September seasonal adjustment in history…

In case it’s hard to see above… how do you know it’s an election year (and Dem support is waning over a bifurcated economy or haves and have-nothings)…

However, Core retail sales rose 4.0% YoY…

Spending at Gas stations and Furniture Stores fell on a MoM basis while Food Services and Food & Beverage Stores spending jumped most…

On an unadjusted basis, retail sales were flat (0.0%) YoY which means (roughly speaking) real retail sales were down notably on a YoY basis…

So, take your pick – is retail spending ‘hot’ or is inflation eating into personal incomes more than many think?