U.S. Retail Sales Rise A Modest 0.3% In January

U.S. retail sales rose a modest 0.3% in January, a slight improvement over December, as unseasonably warm weather boosted sales at hardware stores and furniture stores. The Commerce Department said Friday that the January advance followed a 0.2% rise in sales in December. The slight January gain was in line with expectations. However, economists were also expecting to see a solid gain in an underlying control group of retail sales which feeds into the government’s calculations for overall economic growth. Read more at Time.