Real Retail Sales Down, Again

Real US retail sales fell in October after missing expectations, showing that consumer spending growth weakened once price effects are accounted for—suggesting softer demand amid broader economic cooling.

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From the retail sales release, nominal retail sales in October constant vs. +0.1% m/m, Bloomberg consensus. In real terms, they’re down.
 

Figure 1: Real retail sales deflated by chained CPI (blue), by CPI-all (tan), real consumption (green), all in logs 2025M01=0 . October consumption is predicted using a first differences regression of consumption on real retail sales, 2025M01-25M09. Source: Census, BEA, BLS, and author’s calculations.


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