May Retail Sales..Ouch!

The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for May, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $362.5 billion, a decrease of 1.2 percent (±0.5%) from the previous month, but 6.9 percent (±0.7%) above May 2009. Total sales for the March through May 2010 period were up 8.1 percent (±0.3%) from the same period a year ago. The March to April 2010 percent change was revised from +0.4 percent (±0.5%)* to +0.6 percent (±0.4%).

Retail trade sales were down 1.4 percent (±0.5%) from April 2010, but 7.4 percent (±0.7%) above last year. Gasoline stations sales were up 20.2 percent (±1.8%) from May 2009 and nonstore retailers sales were up 15.6 percent (±1.8%) from last year.

The concensus estimate of all the pundits was for a 0.2% increase in retail sales and a 0.1% increase in retail sales ex-automobiles. Stay tuned as grandpa is confident that CNBC will find some way to put lipstick on this pig of a report.