Highlights of the April US retail sales report:
- Headline sales 0.0% vs +0.6% exp
- Prior headline sales +1.2% (revised to +1.5%)
- Prior control group +0.8% (revised to +1.3%)
- Ex-autos 0.0% vs +0.6% exp
- Ex autos and gas -0.1% vs +0.5% exp
Did it snow in April???
The revisions are nice but not nice enough.
The US dollar is broadly weaker after the data. It’s been a long time since markets and economists have so consistently overestimated the US consumer. The first decade of the century was built on consumer spending but it was all fake housing wealth being thrown away. The second home price rise hasn’t had the same effect as consumers hunker down.
Average growth in the control group is just 0.23% over the past 4 months.
Retail sales control group
Digging through the details, three of the weakest categories were furniture (-0.6%), electronics (-2.3%) and ‘eating, drinking’ (-0.9%). Those categories are some of the most-sensitive to consumer confidence.
Tough to imagine any excuse for such a weak report, it’s looking more like a 2% economy than a 3% economy.
