It's Thursday, September 16th.

Welcome to MarketFoolery.

I'm Chris Hill, with me today, Alicia Alphierry.

Thanks for being here.

So glad to be here, Chris.

We've got the business of deliveries.

We are going to start today with the big macro.

Retail sales in August rose 0.7%, which doesn't seem like much until you consider the fact

that economists were expecting retail sales in August to actually fall 0.8%.

So outpacing was expected by 1.5% in a single month, that's pretty encouraging.

What was your reaction when you saw this news?

Because I've seen sort of reaction in the financial media cutting both ways.

Yeah, and I think that's fair.

For me, I found it a positive development, right?

So retail and food services were expected to decline, like you said.

That was because of the Delta variant supply chain issues and fears that many consumers

were more likely to stay home instead of venture out to shops and restaurants as a result

of the Delta variant.

And those expectations were fair, considering that back in July, retail sales were down

about 1.8%.

But as you said, we have the preliminary results that are out and it's showing retail sales

up 0.7% from August and their levels are up about 15% year-over-year as well.

...