Household spending rebounded in November 2024, reversing October's slight dip. Engineered goods led the way with a rise of 0.9 percent, sparked by soaring demand for durable items like cars and motorcycles (1.9 percent). Even other engineered goods joined the upturn, inching up by 0.2 percent. Meanwhile, the clothing sector couldn't catch a break: its 0.7 percent drop followed October's already sizable fall, erasing much of the gains from September's peak.

On the pantry front, food purchases kept climbing (0.3 percent), buoyed by agri-food products, while tobacco remained a steady constant in households' shopping carts. Energy consumption, however, continued its downward streak. Despite a rebound in gas, the third consecutive decrease in electricity usage dragged overall energy spending down by 0.8 percent.

The month's figures suggest that consumers are selectively ramping up spending-particularly on bigger-ticket items-while remaining cautious in certain discretionary areas like clothing. With food demand still on the rise and energy costs in flux, November paints a picture of a household economy bouncing back selectively but maintaining a watchful eye on where it allocates its funds, leaving the RPI at 11 and the RPI-P at 13. This means that economic activities are ahead of market expectations in France.

Consumption of manufactured goods by consumers is an indicator of consumer spending for household durable goods such as autos and furniture. The data are released separately as part of the report on total goods spending.

This indicator is a measure of retail sales and is unique to France. It measures consumer spending for household durable goods such as autos and furniture. The data are seasonally and workday adjusted. These adjustments eliminate the fluctuations that are solely due to changes in the number of working days. The data appear to be particularly sensitive to the number of worked Saturdays. With consumer spending a large part of the economy, market players continually monitor spending patterns. Retail sales are a measure of consumer well-being.

The pattern in consumer spending is often the foremost influence on stock and bond markets. For stocks, strong economic growth translates to healthy corporate profits and higher stock prices. For bonds, the focus is whether economic growth goes overboard and leads to inflation. Ideally, the economy walks that fine line between strong growth and excessive (inflationary) growth.

Retail sales not only give you a sense of the big picture, but also the trends among different types of retailers. Perhaps auto sales are especially strong or apparel sales are showing exceptional weakness. These trends from the retail sales data can help you spot specific investment opportunities, without having to wait for a company's quarterly or annual report.