Few understand the US Retail Sales data

I didn't understand it either early in my career. Here's how it works....

Despite being a consumer sector analyst on Wall Street for six years, I never fully understood how US Retail Sales data were calculated by the US Census Bureau. In my defense, I didn’t need to understand exactly how it was done. But it bothered me.

Take last month’s July headline from CNBC:

Just glancing at the headline, unless you follow these data point…