U.S. retail sales likely to have grown sequentially in February on strong rise in gasoline sales

U.S. retail sales data for the month of February is set to release tomorrow. According to a TD Economics research report, the retail sales are likely to have grown 0.2 percent sequentially in the month, on the back of a strong rise in gasoline sales and a more subdued rise in sales in the control group.

The former is likely to have grown strongly by 0.4 percent sequentially as gasoline prices continue to recovery, while the latter possibly mean-reverted after an eye-popping 1.1 percent rise in January.

“On the contrary, we expect auto sales to have remained mired, posting a second consecutive monthly drop in February”, added TD Economics.

At 20:00 GMT the FxWirePro's Hourly Strength Index of US Dollar was slightly bullish at 53.9363 more details on FxWirePro's Currency Strength Index, visit http://www.fxwirepro.com/currencyindex