The market was overly impressed with the rebound in February retail sales. The Commerce Department says that the figure for the month was $355.5 billion excluding autos, an increase of 0.3 percent from January. The number was  3.9 percent above February 2009.

Superbowl Sunday probably helped the numbers and make them a less than reliable basis on which to forecast the future. Consumer electronic sales move up from $8.1 billion in January to $8.5 billion in February. The electronics number and sales from sporting good, hobby, book, and music stores were critical to the improvement.

The bad weather did hurt retail activity. It was just masked by the big game, which drew the best Superbowl ratings in years.

Douglas A. McIntyre