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Retail Failures as a Final Warning

Yesterday was rich in all sorts of macroeconomic statistics. But the main thing was still the data on retail sales in the United States. After the rather weak statistics from China, published on Monday, the markets began to worry about whether the rapid economic recovery has come to an end. In this regard, hopes were pinned on US retail sales to calm the markets. But instead of calming down, the markets received another confirmation that it is time to forget about the increased rates of economic growth.

With experts forecasting a 0.3% decline in retail sales, the actual drop was 1.1%. Given the fact that the largest retailers Walmart and Hope Depot did not inspire the markets with their quarterly reports in terms of forecasts for the future, the situation in the US consumer sector does not look very good at all. But this is a generator of 2/3 of the country's GDP.

The pandemic news also added some negativity. New Zealand, for example, decided to show the whole world what a real "zero tolerance" approach to a pandemic is: after a single case was identified in the country, a lockdown was introduced. Well, Japan is going to extend its lockdown until September 12th. And the number of deaths from covid in some states in the United States has already exceeded the peak in November.

In addition to these data, statistics on the UK labor market was released yesterday. The data came out, if not great, then excellent: salaries are growing, the number of vacancies is growing and is at record levels, unemployment is declining. But this did not help the pound much. Which indicates the feasibility of its sales.

Well, finally, funny. Billionaire Mark Cuban, who, together with Musk, is desperately promoting the DOGE meme cryptocurrency, and who said that he himself invests in this crypto currency, recently discovered that his investment in DOGE is $ 500. And this is with a fortune of $ 5.8 billion.