CNBC's Courtney Reagan joins 'Squawk Box' to break down the latest results from the CNBC/NRF Retail Monitor, which shows consumer spending accelerated in December.

Consumer spending in December saw significant growth, according to the CNBC NRF Retail Monitor, with total retail sales—excluding autos and gas but including restaurants—rising 1.3% from November. This marks the strongest month-over-month increase since July and the third consecutive month of growth, closing out a robust holiday season. 

Core retail sales, which exclude restaurants, autos, and gas, grew 1.6% from November and 3.6% year-over-year, although this is slightly below the previous year's growth rate. Discretionary categories such as sporting goods, music, and books led the gains, while restaurant sales were the only sector to decline. Despite negative consumer sentiment in surveys, spending remained resilient, and early 2025 stock market winners included companies in the building and furniture sectors.

Holiday consumer spending strong

New data on the strength of the consumer spending in December. Courtney Reagan joins us now with the latest on that. Good morning. Hi, good morning, Andrew. Well, the CNBC NRF Retail Monitor shows consumer spending accelerated in December from November, marking the strongest month over month total retail sales growth since July, also the third straight month of growth in general, which closes at a ho-ho happy holiday season. Core retail sales, those even stronger. Let's give you some of the details. The CNBC NRF Retail Monitor, powered by actual credit card spending data from Affinity Solutions, shows retail sales, including restaurants, but excluding autos and gas, grew 1.3% in December from November. That's a big acceleration from November. It's just 0.1% growth from October. Though year over year, total retail sales grew three and a half percent. That is less than the year prior, but still pretty good with all consumers are dealing with. December core retail sales, stripping out restaurants, autos and gas, grew an even stronger 1.6% from November after falling in November from October. December core retail sales grew 3.6% compared to the prior year's growth of 4.6%. And while 2025 has been volatile for retail sales, the last quarter followed an upward trend. You can see it on the far right here of this graphic. Despite sentiment and softer survey type measurements about how consumers feel, they've been decide those have been decidedly negative. But NRF chief economist Mark Matthews says consumers gripe, but swipe. Only one retail sector saw sales fall in December from November and not really what I would call a core category. In fact, the strength really leaned into discretionary sporting goods, music and book sales grew three and a half percent in December from November. General merchandise sales grew 2.9%. Electronics appliances gained 2.3%. The only negative category was restaurants. And that was down just 0.3%. Interestingly, year over year, the weakest categories are building and garden supplies as well as furniture sales. That's sort of been the trend. But shares of companies in that subsector like Lowe's, Williams, Sonoma, even Pulte and Lennar, those are among 2025 early winners. Now, cyber money fell in December this year. That likely pushed December to be even stronger when you're looking at some of this spending data, Andrew. So when you talk about some of those companies that you mentioned at the end there, Lennar and some do you think that was 2025? Do you think that continues to pace 2026? Yeah, I mean, I think what we're seeing for some of that early strength in the stock prices of those companies is that President Trump moved off those extra tariffs on on upholstered furniture and cabinets, and he pushed those forward until 2027. So that was some of the early lift. But obviously, I think there's this belief that interest rates and mortgages will continue to fall. And that is also further pushing those stocks higher. But if you look at a Wayfair, Wayfair did really well. Restoration Hardware didn't do great. So, you know, I think it's also these micro stories for each of these companies as well.

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