Shares of several retail and apparel stocks, including Etsy Inc (NASDAQ:ETSY), Best Buy Co Inc (NYSE:BBY) and GameStop Corp (NYSE:GME), are trading lower Friday following data showing a drop in U.S. retail sales.
Retail sales fell by 1.9% in December, declining much more than the estimates for a 0.1% drop. Excluding auto sales, retail sales fell 2.3%, which was also much worse than estimates for a 0.3% rise.
The consumer price index increased by 0.5% for the month, which brought the total gain to 7% year-over-year, representing the highest levels since 1982.
The Federal Reserve has been stressing the importance of cooling inflation, with multiple policymakers signaling they expect to start raising rates as soon as March.
See Also: Why Disney Shares Are Falling Today
ETSY, BBY, GME Price Action: At publication time, Etsy was down 3.33% at $161.24, Best Buy was down 3.19% at $99.33 and GameStop was down 6.65% at $114.43.
Photo: Mediamodifier from Pixabay.
