New York Session - November 16, 2009 4:45 PM

Better economic data and a rather status-quo Bernanke helped risk assets extend gains in NY trading, sending the US dollar commensurately lower. Headline retail sales blew away expectations, rising 1.4% in October on a pop in auto sales. Moreover, the “control” retail sales number (ex gasoline, auto dealers and building materials) was actually up a decent +0.5% on the month and this follows +0.4% in September and +0.5% in August. This really limited the downside for risky assets all day. Equities liked the details of the report even more than the headline and were up about 1.5% by the time the dust settled. Full text »