Retail Sales (June)

The better-than-expected 7.5% m/m increase in retail sales in June suggests that the resurgence in coronavirus infections in the South and the West hadn’t yet had an impact on consumers. Admittedly, the high frequency data suggest that the recovery lost a lot of momentum in early July – with initial jobless claims basically unchanged at 1,300,000 in the week ending 11th July – but that’s not a disaster because the rebound in sales in June was big enough to eliminate nearly all of the remaining shortfall relative to the pre-pandemic level.