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Retail Sales Drop More Than Expected in May But Revisions for April Were Positive

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13 comments on Retail Sales Drop More Than Expected in May But Revisions for April Were Positive

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The impact of the third round of stimulus died in May. 

Details 

  • Advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for May 2021, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $620.2 billion, a decrease of 1.3% from the previous month, but 28.1 percent above May 2020. 
  • Total sales for the March 2021 through May 2021 period were up 36.2 percent  from the same period a year ago. 
  • The March 2021 to April 2021 percent change was revised from virtually unchanged to up 0.9 percent.

Retail Sales as Reported and Revised

The above chart is from Bloomberg Econoday. I created the lead chart from a BLS data download.

Synopsis 

Covid has so distorted the month-over month and year-over-year numbers that such comparisons look ridiculous. 

However, the three big peaks in the lead chart following the initial Covid-related plunge tell the story.

The stimulus has now worn off. What will Biden and the Fed do for an encore?  

Mish

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Mike Shedlock

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13 Comments
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Oldest Most Voted
Bam_Man
Bam_Man
5 years ago
Maybe this is what happens when you pull six months worth of sales forward, and then have to pay 29.99% interest on the credit cards you used?
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RonJ
RonJ
5 years ago
“The stimulus has now worn off. What will Biden and the Fed do for an encore?”
Reparations?
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thimk
thimk
5 years ago
well, we are almost fully “open”.  (can’t get over the fact government shut down a large swatches  of the economy, unreal). Watch retail sales fade into the sunset as we see a pickup in the service sector. A lot of pent up demand in that sector .  Oh for you RV lovers current and prospective , utube reports difficulty in getting  camping reservations.   The storage lots here in Florida  are filled with RV’s and campers sitting idle.   The post covid19 landscape coupled with the Biden admin’s policies may produce some interesting paradigm shifts  .
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Eddie_T
Eddie_T
5 years ago
At least when you give poor people money they spend it into the local economy….that’s more than can be said for corporate bailouts, fwiw.
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Carl_R
Carl_R
5 years ago
Reply to  Eddie_T
Or is it? Do they spend it in the local economy? Or do they spend it on goods from China? I would argue that far more of the PPP money ended up in the local economy.
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Eddie_T
Eddie_T
5 years ago
Reply to  Carl_R
I spent every PPP penny into the local economy, but it would have been paid anyway, since it was payroll. It mostly, from my POV…..gave us some breathing room when we needed it, It kept me from having to take on even more debt than I did.
But I do know that many stimulus checks got spent on my services.
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Zardoz
Zardoz
5 years ago
Reply to  Eddie_T
The corporations end up with most of it in the end, no matter who gets it first.
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RonJ
RonJ
5 years ago
Reply to  Zardoz
That must be why corporations go bankrupt.
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Casual_Observer2020
Casual_Observer2020
5 years ago
@Mish how hot is it in St George today ?
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Casual_Observer2020
Casual_Observer2020
5 years ago
*yawn*. This is better than insurrection.
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caradoc-again
caradoc-again
5 years ago
We can say with some certainty they think they can intervene to “improve” things.
Unintended consequences and distortions will abound.
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anoop
anoop
5 years ago
we will continue to have stimuli
followed eventually by ubi
(in case you guys didn’t notice, i’m a budding poet.)
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Ninjango
Ninjango
5 years ago
Q: What will Biden and the Fed do for an encore?
A: probably another round of stimulus checks…. 
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