US Retail Sales - core flat but headline good dev

Today we saw the release of the Retail Sales figures out of the USA. The focus is on the main Core Retail Sales figure to get a spike trade, however today this figure came out as expected. The headline figure, which includes automobile sales, did come out with a -0.5 deviation. This is about the deviation we were looking for on the Core number. Initially price action did not respond much, in fact in the first few seconds the USDJPY actually went up a few pips, however it then turned back down, it was not a fast move however and it did pullback to provide some afterspike forex news trade signals. Here are the figures:

*(US) OCT ADVANCE RETAIL SALES: 1.2% V 0.7%E; RETAIL SALES LESS AUTOS: 0.4% V 0.4%E V
- Retail Sales Ex Auto & Gas: 0.4% v 0.3%e

- Prior Advance Retail Sales revised higher from 0.6% to 0.7%
- Prior Ex Auto revised higher from 0.4% to 0.5%

Always fib the initial swing after the news, this will give the trader certain levels to look for an entry. It can be tempting to chase the price, and often even this will give pips when there is a continuation, especially after a larger deviation. A safer way is to wait for the pullback after the initial spike. In this news release, the market needed a bit of time to make the move. Most traders, not seeing a deviation on the core, stood aside for a moment and then once price started reacting in the expected way to the headline figure, they jumped in. On the EURUSD chart included there was an initial pullback to the 50-61% hot zone, this then extended up to the 161% extension of the same move (this 161% at 1.3650 is also the 61% of Friday Nov.12th range), also later on it came back to the former swing high, and although it did break below this for a few moments, it came back above and started heading higher. On the USDJPY chart the pullback was only to the 38%. Normally we focus on the USDJPY pair when trading this news, however at times the USDJPY does not react so well so it is always advisable to also look at the EURUSD or USDCHF for trade opportunities.

Doug Ragan has also posted about how the EMini S&P Futures Contract traded during the news, including info about trading a the opening gap. I took this trade and made 3 ES Points, or 12 ticks....quite happy about that...Cheers Doug!