By Mucahithan Avcioglu
ISTANBUL (AA) - Retail trade in the US climbed 0.6% month-on-month in June, reversing a 0.9% fall in May, according to US Census Bureau data released Thursday.
The total trade volume amounted to $720.1 billion in June, while the market expected that the figure would rise slightly 0.1% monthly in the month.
The largest increases were seen for miscellaneous goods and services with 1.8%, motor vehicles and parts with 1.2%.
Sales of building materials and garden equipment, and clothing both saw rises of 0.9% in June.
Other increases were seen in food services & drinking places (0.6%), food and beverage stores (0.5%), health and personal care (0.5%) and general merchandise stores (0.5%), non-store retailers (0.4%), and sporting goods, hobby, musical instrument, and book stores (0.2%).
On the other hand, sales were unchanged at gasoline stations and were down 0.1% at both furniture and electronics stores.
Meanwhile, sales that are used to calculate the GDP—which do not include food services, car dealers, construction material stores, or petrol stations—were up 0.5% after a downwardly revised 0.2% gain and also higher than the 0.3% forecast.
On an annual basis, retail sales rose 3.9% in June.