Looks like the consumer is hanging in there. We
got a little bit stronger than anticipated growth in the
control group, which is what feeds into GDP up
7/10 of a percent. The forecast was for a
rise of 4/10 and it had contracted 3/10 the month
before. Same story with auto with the overall headline
number up 4/10 1% last time, so not quite
as strong there, but the transportation is up 4/10
that was a negative 8/10 last time. So it
does look like the consumer is hanging in there,
which is what the fed was kind of hoping to
see if you're going to do the soft landing scenario
. You need the consumer to hang in there and
so far they are, I'll let you get this
market reaction. I'll see what I can find out
here about what went up and what went down and
lisa the market reaction is higher yields. And I
would suggest it's pretty dramatic over the last 234 days
, the set of data has got us out on
the two year thermometer to 4.4%. So there,
there's a tangible lift here in yields, higher yields
, bill note bond prices lower as well. And
again, equities like Dean Kernan said, some know
it, that would be the fancy word for it
. Well, I'm looking right now a little bit
better than expected but still on a real basis negative
and I think this is really the question. Thank
you that the general trend is lower. So even
though have been expected, still on a non inflation
adjusted level, an actual headline retail sales advance month
after month is 0.4% versus the expectation of 0.8%.
The control group better than that 0.7% but still again
on a real basis, still negative. And this
needs some adjustment as Michael mckee looks at 85 lines
that come out within this report. Hell of that
all broken down Michael mckee. Inflation is really a
significant dynamic here, isn't it is not here.
Yes, it has been Tom. And that's one
of the reasons we're looking also at the control group
aside from the fact that some of these things are
accounted for differently in GDP. But it also takes
out gasoline and gasoline has been a big mover for
the retail sales number over the past couple of months
because it's been going up and down. It's one
reason that we saw a decline last month and it's
a reason that we saw a rise this month in
retail sales because gasoline station sales fell on the month
by 4%. It looks like. Uh So,
uh that, that makes a big difference out there
. Uh The uh other categories that uh move significantly
though were general merchandise stores. And uh I think
what you have here is between the Mar, the
April and May numbers or April and March number is
uh Easter effect. Easter was early in April this
year. So some of the spending that were taking
place in March moves over to April and you want
to average that out. But overall, I think
the bottom line that Lisa brought up about inflation still
playing a role is there. But you also have
to look at the fact that consumers are still spending
and we aren't seeing necessarily any signs of recession in
the retail sales figure.