The Census Bureau's Advance Retail Sales Report for May released this morning showed a slight decrease over the April figures. Headline sales came in at -0.3% month-over-month to one decimal. Today's headline number was below the Investing.com consensus of 0.1%. Core sales (ex Autos) also came in at -0.3% MoM and the April Core was revised upward.
Here is the introduction from today's report:
Advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for May 2017, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $473.8 billion, a decrease of 0.3 percent (±0.5 percent)* from the previous month, and 3.8 percent (±0.9 percent) above May 2016. Total sales for the March 2017 through May 2017 period were up 4.4 percent (±0.7 percent) from the same period a year ago. The March 2017 to April 2017 percent change was unrevised at 0.4 percent (±0.1 percent).
Retail trade sales were down 0.3 percent (±0.5 percent)* from April 2017, and up 4.0 percent (±0.7 percent) from last year. Building Material and Garden Equipment and Supplies Dealers were up 10.8 percent (±1.8 percent) from May 2016, while Nonstore Retailers were up 10.2 percent (±1.8 percent) from last year. [view full report]
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.
Core Sales
Here is the year-over-year version of Core 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. The popular financial press typically ignores this series, but it a more consistent and reliable reading of the economy.
Here is the same series year-over-year. Note that the current level is above one of two highlighted values at the start of 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: May sales showed a slight decrease over the previous month and figures were worse than forecast. Later today we'll take a closer look at Real Retail Sales.