CNBC hosts sit utterly stunned over worst holiday sales in 9 years: 'I was thinking things were pretty good'

Hosts of CNBC's Squawk Box were stunned on Thursday after the network broke the news that holiday sales for 2018 had unexpectedly fizzled.

"We just got some big economic data and it's moving the markets right now," CNBC host Andrew Ross Sorkin explained. "Retail sales falling the most in a decade, falling 1.2 percent. Gains of futures evaporating. We were up triple digits."

"I mean, the retail sales data was so disappointing," one host agreed.

"Nine years," another host grumbled.

"And we thought the holiday season was so great!" Sorkin exclaimed.

"I was thinking that things were pretty good, maybe I'm going to shift back to more hawkish," co-host Joe Kernen lamented. "This might seem to indicate that they stay exactly how they are."

"This is real data," Sorkin agreed.

The anchors went on to speculate that President Donald Trump's government shutdown may have contributed to the dismal retail sales.

Later in the hour, CNBC's Jim Cramer struggled to explain the data.

"It was actually a very bad holiday season," Cramer remarked. "This was on [Fed Chairman Jerome Powell]. I said that the homework indicated that things had gotten very weak. He had not done the homework. I don't know who he was speaking to."

Watch the video below from CNBC.