Retail sales boost stocks

Tweet   

The Russell 2000 (NYSE: IWM) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDU) are higher on news of higher-than-expected U.S. retail sales in July.

At 10:06 a.m. ET the Russell 2000 had added 8.66 points, or 1.10%, to 797.44. The Dow had added 68.12 points, or 0.51%, to 13,307.66.

Retail sales in July added 0.3% to a seasonally adjusted $376.1 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau reported this morning. That’s above the projected increase of. 0.2% and an improvement over June’s drop of 0.7%.

The increase was evident in almost all categories except sales of automobiles and car parts, which declined 0.2%. Excluding autos, retail sales expanded 0.4%.

On a year-over-year basis, retail sales in July were up 3.2% compared with the same month on 2006. The only categories posting a decline were sales of building materials and gardening supplies, as well as department store sales.

Elsewhere, the European Central Bank announced that it has injected $65 billion into money markets to boost liquidity, its third consecutive business day of interventions.

Motivated by similar concerns, the Bank of Japan announced that it has added $5.1 billion, while South Korea’s finance ministry said that it is ready to supplant funds if necessary.

The following are the most actively traded company's with market capitalizations under $500 million: