Courtesy of Karl Denninger at The Market Ticker
Well well, look what the cat dragged in this morning….
The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for April, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $389.4 billion, an increase of 0.5 percent (±0.5%)* from the previous month, and 7.6 percent (±0.7%) above April 2010. Total sales for the February through April 2011 period were up 8.1 percent (±0.5%) from the same period a year ago. The February to March 2011 percent change was revised from +0.4 percent (±0.5%)* to +0.9 percent (±0.4%).
Retail trade sales were up 0.6 percent (±0.5%) from March 2011, and 7.9 percent (±0.7%) above last year. Gasoline stations sales were up 21.8 percent (±1.7%) from April 2010 and nonstore retailers sales were up 15.5 percent (±3.1%) from last year.
Note that nice gasoline number and notice that the month-to-month change was not included in the headline paragraphs.
Why not?
Because gasoline was up 2.7% from last month and food stores were up 1.5%, easily the two largest increases. Electronics and furniture were both down and clothing and general were only up fractionally, with general merchandise essentially flat (+0.1%)
Non-store (internet based, essentially) retailers saw a 1% increase.
Growth? Well, if you count forced purchases of food and energy "growth", I suppose. But if you think this will lead to hiring and economic prosperity, well, I think you’ve got rocks in your head.
[click on chart to enlarge]
