The Census Bureau's Advance Retail Sales Report released this morning shows that seasonally adjusted sales in June were down 0.3% month-over-month and up 1.4% year-over-year. Core Retail Sales (ex Autos) came in at -0.1% MoM and 0.1% YoY.
The Investing.com forecasts were 0.2% for Headline Sales and 0.5% for Core Sales.
Today's report shows a slight slow after last month's short-lived spring bounce in personal consumption.
The chart below is a log-scale snapshot of retail sales since the early 1990s. The two exponential regressions through the data help us to evaluate the long-term trend of this key economic indicator.
The year-over-year percent change provides another perspective on the historical trend. Here is the headline series.
Here is the year-over-year version of Core Retail Sales.
Retail Sales: "Control" Purchases
The next two charts illustrate retail sales "Control" purchases, which is an even more "Core" view of retail sales. This series excludes Motor Vehicles & Parts, Gasoline, Building Materials as well as Food Services & Drinking Places.
Here is the same series year-over-year. Note the highlighted values at the start of the two recessions since the inception of this series in the early 1990s.
For a better sense of the reduced volatility of the "Control" series, here is a YoY overlay with the headline retail sales.
Bottom Line: June's unexpected slight slow may suggest the consumer economy will take a little bit longer to bounce back from its recent months stall.
