Jim Cramer: Retail Sales Will Make Federal Reserve Pause

TheStreet’s Action Alerts PLUS Portfolio Manager Jim Cramer said disappointing retail sales data will prompt the Federal Reserve to take a pause when it comes to interest rate hikes. The central bank wraps up its two-day March policy meeting on Wednesday. ‘If you go back to that week in February where we saw this faux credit crisis – one of the things that broke that up was that retail sales came out and they were very strong for January,’ Cramer said. ‘That whole number has been revised down and that is going to make it so the Fed is going to have to pause about when they are going to be as urgent when it comes to a rate hike.’ U.S. retail sales in February dropped 0.1 percent, according to a report released on Tuesday by the Census Bureau. What caught investors by surprise was the significant downward revision to the prior month. January actually saw a 0.4 percent drop in retail sales, compared to a previously reported 0.2 percent increase. Heading into Wednesday’s Fed statement, the markets are pricing in a zero percent chance of a rate hike.