Sears, Home Depot, Best Buy, & Target Benefit from Back to School Sales

Retail Sales and the American Spender in Review and a ‘Speculative’ Outlook   On Tuesday of this past week, the Commerce Department’s retail sales figures were released, coming in at a growth rate of 0.8 percent (about 9.7 percent on an annualized basis), with retail sales excluding motor vehicle parts and dealers also coming in at 0.8 percent (about 9.8 percent on an annualized basis).  The results generally beat analysts’ estimates by about half a percent, and put upward pressure on equity prices. What do the recent figures reveal about the American consumer?  First, we learned that the summer months…