February snowstorms in parts of the United States seem to have had little impact on shopping, with U.S. retail sales growing more than expected over the previous month and providing some hope that the consumer is stirring.
The upbeat report helped global stock market indexes on Friday morning. U.S. stock index futures were higher with about 30 minutes before markets open, suggesting that stocks will rise at the start of trading. Futures for the Dow Jones industrial average were up 40 points. The S&P 500 was up 0.4 per cent.
In Europe, where indexes rose before the retail sales report, the U.K.'s FTSE 100 was up 0.4 per cent and Germany's DAX index was up 0.8 per cent in afternoon trading. In Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 rose 0.8 per cent in overnight trading.
The U.S. Commerce Department reported that consumer sales rose 0.3 per cent in February over the previous month, better than the 0.2 per cent decline expected by economists. Ignore auto sales, and consumer sales rose 0.8 per cent.
"It seems that the American consumer is a resilient species," said Eric Lascelles, chief economics and rates strategist at TD Securities, in a note.
In Canada, the economy generated more jobs in February than expected. According to Statistics Canada, employers added 20,900 jobs during the month, better than the 15,000 jobs that economists had been expecting. As well, the jobless rate fell to 8.2 per cent, a 10-month low.
Observers are again wondering if the upbeat economic news suggests that the Bank of Canada will raise interest rates sooner than some had expected. As a result, the Canadian dollar jumped about two-thirds of a cent against the U.S. dollar, rising to 98.3 cents.