SPENDING TICKS UP IN SURPRISE TO EXPERTS

Americans continued to spend at a brisk pace last month in the face of rising COVID-19 infections, though much of it was done online and not at restaurants or other sectors in the U.S. economy beleaguered by the arrival of the delta variant. Retail sales rose a seasonally adjusted 0.7% in August from the month before, the U.S. Commerce Department said Thursday. That uptick caught most economists by surprise. Consensus estimates were for a decrease of 0.85%, according to a survey of economists by FactSet.