Retail Sale Announcement Sends Stocks Lower

May’s retail sales disappointed investors and subsequently send stock futures lower.

Sales increased 0.3 percent month over month (4.3 percent year over year) versus the 0.6 percent estimate. Excluding autos, there was no growth, despite the 0.4 percent estimate.

The disappointing earning miss surprised many investors. The significant increase in payrolls for May, coupled with an increase in the hourly wage left many speculating that 0.6 percent month over month growth would not be hard to topple.

S&P futures were last trading at 1,943 down one point since the announcement. The SPDR retail ETF XRT was last down 0.33 percent.

Jobless claims were also announced at 8:30 am Thursday morning. Initial jobless claims were 2.26 percent worse than expected at 317,000. Continuing jobless claims slightly missed the analyst consensus at 2.61 million.