Welcome to Seeking Office Wall Street Lunch. Our afternoon update on today's market action, news, and analysis.

Good afternoon. Today is Tuesday, August 15th I'm your host Kim Kahn. Our top story so far.

The U.S. consumer showed unexpected strength in July, helped in part by a shift in Amazon Prime Day.

Retail sales were 0.7% last month, topping expectations for a 0.4%

gain. Core retail sales gain 1%, confounding forecasts for a drop of 0.3%.

Wells Fargo said somehow rising delinquencies,

higher consumer financing costs,

and the erosion of the pandemic era savings

for the perfect formula for an expectation crushing number. And for an

perfect formula for an expectation crushing number. And for an added flex, the gain comes despite an upward revision to the prior monthly data.

The sales increase for e-commerce heavyweights around the Amazon Prime Day event

helped to boost sales in the non-store retailers category up 10.3% year over year.

Overall, strong sales gains were logged by sporting goods, hobby,

musical instruments in bookstores, and food services and drinking places.

The biggest declines were at furniture and home furnishing stores and at electronics and appliance stores.

Pantheon Macro says it's too soon to conclude that spending growth is re-accelerating.

While they say that's possible, they have two caveats.

The first is that the margin of error and the month-to-month change in advanced retail sales is plus or

minus 0.3 percent, so some of the July strength could be revised away in the months

ahead. The second is that the timing of Amazon Prime Day since COVID has wreaked havoc on the seasonals and they expect a partial reversal of the July jump in the months ahead.

Wells Fargo also noted that five of 13 retailer categories saw sales slip from a year ago.

Now a look at today's trading.

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