The Census Bureau's Advance Retail Sales Report for July was released this morning. Headline sales came in at 0.03% month-over-month to two decimals and were below the Investing.com forecast of 0.1%. Core sales (ex Autos) came in at 0.41% MoM.

Here is the introduction from today's report:

Advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for July 2022, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $682.8 billion, virtually unchanged (±0.5 percent)* from the previous month, but 10.3 percent (±0.7 percent) above July 2021. Total sales for the May 2022 through July 2022 period were up 9.2 percent (±0.5 percent) from the same period a year ago. The May 2022 to June 2022 percent change was revised from up 1.0 percent (±0.5 percent) to up 0.8 percent (±0.2 percent).

Retail trade sales were virtually unchanged (±0.4 percent)* from June 2022, but up 10.1 percent (±0.7 percent) above last year. Gasoline stations were up 39.9 percent (±1.6 percent) from July 2021, while nonstore retailers were up 20.2 percent (±1.2 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's a more consistent and reliable reading of the economy.

Here is the same series year-over-year.

For a better sense of the reduced volatility of the “Control” series, here is a YoY overlay with the headline retail sales.

Bottom Line: July headline, core, and control were little changed and were better or worse than forecasts. Later today, we'll take a closer look at Real Retail Sales.

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