There is no new significant economic data today, and I am on the road. Meaningful reporting should resume tomorrow with housing permits, starts, and construction.

In the meantime, here is a look at a high frequency series I keep track of: Redbook retail sales, for the past year:

There are some peaks and valleys, generally around Holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the like, but the average over four weeks has stayed fairly steady at +5% YoY, which is about normal during expansions.

Since consumer inflation, especially ex-housing prices, has remained in the 2%-3% range, this means there has been a fairly steady increase in consumer spending that has continued over the past year.

In other words, “steady as she goes.” And since the consumer economy is about 70% of the whole economy, that has pretty much been the story for the entire economy.

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