The Most Important Economic Datapoint Of The Week Is Coming Out Today

The most important economic datapoint of the week is coming out today. It's retail sales for August.

Here's a preview from Nomura:

Retail sales: Vehicle sales increased to its highest level in six years in August and seasonally adjusted gasoline prices also rose. These indicators point to an increase of 0.5% in headline retail sales in August (Consensus: 0.5%). Excluding autos, we expect retail sales to increase by 0.4% (Consensus: 0.3%). Consumer confidence held up in August supporting our expectation that control retail sales (sales excluding gasoline stations, autos, and building materials) rose by 0.3% (Consensus: 0.3%).

Meanwhile, this should also be interesting.

University of Michigan consumer sentiment: This index of consumer sentiment decreased in August as more households reported income declines than increases for the first time in five months and consumers reduced their expected pace of economic growth. Consensus expects the sentiment index to decline slightly to 82.0 in the preliminary September report from 82.1 in August.