US consumers appeared to regain some of their appetite for shopping last month as retail sales spiked by a more-than-expected 0.75%, official figures showed.
The Commerce Department's monthly snapshot on retail sales, a key driver of economic growth, was ahead of most Wall Street analysts who had only anticipated a 0.4% rise in sales.
The sales gain was also the strongest since December. Stripping out car sales from the February report, retail sales gained 0.8%, better than most analysts had forecast.
Over the past 12 months, overall retail sales are up 3.8% or 3.9% excluding the car sector.
