Despite all the dismal downbeat sentiment signals from various 'soft' data, it appears the American consumer is not deterred from spend, spend, spend as US Retail Sales surged 0.6% MoM in June (up from the 0.9% MoM plunge in May and better than the +0.1% MoM expected), driving sales up 3.9% YoY...
Source: Bloomberg
Under the hood, Motor Vehicles and Auto Parts sales surged in June (yes this is AFTER the tariffs went into place and NOT due to any front-running)...
Source: Bloomberg
The Control Group - which feeds directly into GDP - also surged 0.5% MoM in June, leaving sales up 4.0% YoY...
Source: Bloomberg
Of course, this data is all nominal, so we make a rough and ready approximate to 'real' spending by reducing the sales by CPI and voila, 'Real' Retail Sales have risen YoY for the last 9 months...
Source: Bloomberg
So are spending outlooks from all those 'soft' survey just a load of partisan bullshit?
