Retail Sales Announcement Sends Stocks Lower; Jobless Claims Miss Estimates

May’s retail sales disappointed investors and subsequently sent stock futures lower.

Sales increased 0.3 percent month-over-month (4.3 percent year-over-year) versus the 0.6 percent estimate. Excluding autos, there was no growth, despite the 0.4 percent estimate.

The disappointing earning miss surprised many investors. The significant increase in payrolls for May, coupled with an increase in the hourly wage left many speculating that 0.6 percent month-over-month growth would not be hard to topple.

S&P futures were last trading at 1,943 -- down one point since the announcement. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF (NYSE: XRT) was last down 0.33 percent.

Jobless Claims

Jobless claims were also announced at 8:30 a.m. Thursday. Initial jobless claims were 2.26 percent worse than expected at 317,000. Continuing jobless claims slightly missed the analyst consensus at 2.61 million.