US Retail Sales Surged In June (Despite Sentiment Slump)

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?