Highlights
Redbook, citing strength in back-to-school sales during the September 8 week, reports accelerating growth for the nation's retailers, at a year-on-year plus 2.7 percent for its same-store sales index. This is the best rate of growth since early June. Though Redbook's rate of growth is more than 1 percentage point below rival ICSC-Goldman's rate, the upward trajectory of Redbook's slope is now in line with ICSC-Goldman.

And Redbook sees continued strength ahead for September, forecasting a big 1.9 percent gain compared with August which points to strength for the ex-auto ex-gas category of the government's retail sales report. But this is getting a bit ahead of things as the markets are not focused yet on this month but on last month with the government to post on Friday what are expected to be strong results in the retail sales report for August.