Retail Sales Declines Again In June 2017

Retail sales were down according to US Census headline data. Our analysis agrees..

Backward data revisions were mixed.

Econintersect Analysis:

unadjusted sales rate of growth decelerated 2.2 % month-over-month, and up3.2 % year-over-year.

unadjusted sales 3 months rolling year-over-year average growth decelerated 0.6 % month-over-month, up 4.0 % year-over-year.

unadjusted sales (but inflation adjusted) up 1.3 % year-over-year

this is an advance report. Please see caveats below-showing variations between the advance report and the “final”.

in the seasonally adjusted data – the major weakness was general merchandise stores. There was significant strength in non-store retailers, autos, and generally most items.

U.S. Census Headlines:

seasonally adjusted sales down 0.2 % month-over-month, up 2.8 % year-over-year.

the market was expecting (from Bloomberg / Econoday):

seasonally adjusted Consensus Range Consensus Actual Retail Sales – M/M change 0.0 % to 0.4 % +0.1 % -0.2 % Retail Sales less autos – M/M change 0.1 % to 0.4 % +0.2 % -0.2 % Less Autos & Gas – M/M Change 0.3 % to 0.5 % +0.4 % -0.1 % Control Group – M/M change 0.3 % to 0.5 % +0.5 % -0.1 %

Year-over-Year Change – Unadjusted Retail Sales (blue line) and Inflation Adjusted Retail Sales (red line)

Retail sales per capita seem to be in a long term downtrend (but short term trends appear to be growing – see graph below).

Year-over-Year Change – Per Capita Seasonally Adjusted Retail Sales

From the U.S. Census Bureau press release:

Advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for June 2017, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $473.5 billion, a decrease of 0.2 percent (± 0.5 percent)* from the previous month, and 2.8 percent (± 0.9 percent) above June 2016. Total sales for the April 2017 through June 2017 period were up 3.8 percent (± 0.7 percent) from the same period a year ago. The April 2017 to May 2017 percent change was revised from down 0.3 percent (± 0.5 percent)* to down 0.1 percent (± 0.2 percent)*. Retail trade sales were down 0.1 percent (± 0.5 percent)* from May 2017, and up 3.0 percent (± 0.7 percent) from last year. Nonstore Retailers were up 9.2 percent (± 1.8 percent) from June 2016, while Sporting Goods, Hobby, Book, & Music Stores were down 8.9 percent (± 2.1 percent) from last year.