It is expected that U.S. retail sales for the month of August will have improved in comparison to July's data. The data are to be released 12:30pm GMT on Friday, hopefully alleviating the attention from the jobs report which revealed that only 142,000 jobs were added in August. Current projections show that retail sales will have increased by 0.6%. If the retail sales figures are strong, the upcoming Fed meeting may take a turn and call for some action as regards interest rates.