Retail Sales Declines Again In June 2017 -

Retail Sales Declines Again In June 2017

Jul 14, 2017Jeremy ParkinsonFinance0

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.