OPTIONS: Upside Seen After BOE/ECB Decisions

The Chicago Fed's Advance Retail Trade Summary (CARTS) showed a downward revision in its final estimate for January ex-autos retail sales, to -0.1% from +0.1% in the preliminary report. There's still no schedule for the release of Census Bureau January retail sales data but the CARTS update will only add to suggestions that core growth has slowed sharply in the last few months after December's official report badly missed expectations.

• CARTS's estimate for December ex-auto sales proved too high, with the actual print of 0.0% well below the 0.6% CARTS. The miss appears to have also spilled into the downward revision for January.
• Combined with the December "miss", the 3M/3M annualized ex-auto retail sales growth for January as implied by the CARTS series has been revised down to 2.4% from 4.5%. That would be the slowest implied quarterly nominal growth rate since April 2024 and well down from the recent peak of 5.8% as of end-Q3.
• Inflation adjusted, that quarterly rate is barely positive (CARTS estimates -0.1% M/M in January, and the core CPI figure was close to 3% on a 3M/3M annualized basis in the month).
• The CARTS prelim for February is out on March 9.

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• EUR/USD: Feb19 $1.1725(E1.5bln), $1.1750-70(E3.9bln) $1.1790-00(E3.5bln), $1.1850(E1.2bln), $1.2000(E2.3bln), $1.2100(E1.3bln)
• USD/JPY: Feb19 Y153.00($2.7bln), Y155.00($1.4bln); Feb23 Y165.00($3.6bln)