On Friday, the Commerce Department delivered a report on June retail
sales that looked on the surface to be very positive. Sales rose 0.6
percent in June from May, which was far above the 0.1 percent consensus
from Wall Street. Sales rose in virtually every category, even
department stores. The only categories to see sales drop were clothing
stores and restaurants and bars.
But there are some questions
lurking underneath. For one thing, May’s initial report was revised down
significantly, from a gain of 0.5 percent to only 0.2 percent. So the
June number is in large part an offset of what
now appears to be a mediocre May.
More importantly, look at the
year-over-year number. Sales in June were up 2.7 percent over last June,
while as recently as June 2013, that same number was 5.8 percent. That
indicates the current monthly numbers are good - but far from great.
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