The US consumer continues to display a willingness to spend as this morning’s retail sales data shows year over year improvement. ICSC is a reporting a “very healthy” year over year gain of 4% for the week ending April 10th. Redbook is reporting a month over month decline of 1.3%, but year over year improvement of 3.3%. Retailers have been warning of a possible April slowdown after the early Easter made for very easy comps. Tomorrow’s retail sales report will likely reflect the very strong sales from March. Analysts are calling for just 1.2% m/m improvement, but the recent same store sales reports and strength of Redbook and ICSC data likely means there is some upside risk.
Mr. Roche is the Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Discipline Funds.Discipline Funds is a low fee financial advisory firm with a focus on helping people be more disciplined with their finances.
He is also the author of Pragmatic Capitalism: What Every Investor Needs to Understand About Money and Finance, Understanding the Modern Monetary System and Understanding Modern Portfolio Construction.