Bank of America: retail sales to improve after payment of tax refunds

With the credibility of economic analysts in the doldrums, following their miscalculations on US market growth during the holiday season of 2018, a recent report issued by the Bank of America Corporation (BofA) that retail sales are about to rebound, was therefore greeted with reservations by the media.

In February, US retail sales dipped 0.1 percent, according to a recent report issued by Bank of America (BofA) , the second largest bank in the United States.
The BofA report argued that the decline in February was caused, in part, by the delays in processing by the federal authorities of income-tax refunds, which seriously affected low-income households.

These delays, BofA reported, “weighed on spending at a time when consumer confidence already was sagging due to the stock market's steep selloff in December, creating a ‘negative wealth shock and hurting confidence,’ and the lingering effects of the prolonged U.S. government shutdown.”

The BofA report concluded that "once these special factors reverse, the reality of healthy fundamentals will set in, supporting spending in the spring."