Today the U.S. Census Bureau released preliminary estimates of nationwide retail sales in October 2024 and revised estimates for September 2024. (The data include both brick-and-mortar and Internet sales.)
Retail Sales Growing. Seasonally adjusted U.S. retail sales grew 1.1 percent from July to October. Cumulative twelve-month growth in sales from October 2023 to October 2024 was 2.8 percent.
Recent One-Month Changes Too Volatile to Be Informative. As noted previously, recent patterns suggest that the Census Bureau’s seasonal adjustment for retail sales might not be working as intended. Until these concerns are addressed, numbers that are less sensitive to seasonal patterns---such as the three-month and twelve-month growth rates noted above---likely provide more useful information than monthly numbers.
Inflation-Adjusted Sales Grew Substantially Over Last 3 Months, but Only Slightly Over Last 12 Months. Across all goods and services purchased by consumers, U.S. prices increased by 0.6 percent from July to October, well below the 1.1 percent growth in nominal sales. From October 2023 to October 2024, prices grew 2.6 percent, slightly below the 2.8 percent growth in sales over that twelve-month period.