[Lorianne]

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 $436.8 billion, virtually unchanged (±0.5%)* from the previous month, but 0.9 percent (±0.9%)* above April 2014. Total sales for the February 2015 through April 2015 period were up 1.5 percent (±0.7%) from the same period a year ago. The February 2015 to March 2015 percent change was revised from +0.9 percent (±0.5%) to +1.1 percent (±0.2%).

Retail trade sales were down 0.1 (±0.5%)* from March 2015, and 0.1 percent (±0.7%)* below last year. Food services and drinking places were up 8.5 percent (±3.3%) from April 2014 and nonstore retailers were up 6.3 percent (±1.9%) from last year.

http://www.census.gov/retail/marts/www/marts_current.pdf

[expat_panama]

Tx! I sometimes complain about those reports confusing things but I still pay attention. On our worry list we might want to add yesterdays negative PPI (-0.4%). Deflation’s deadly tho it would mean we could forget about rate hikes.