Lines That Sink, Bob Back up and Soar
Article source: ConstructConnect
There are some eye-catching results to be observed from the Census Bureau’s Advance Monthly Sales for Retail and Food Services, May 2020 report. After shopkeepers posted terrible results in April, there were some astonishing bounce-backs in May.
The following seven graphs mainly speak for themselves. There are lines that plummet severely and stay depressed. But there are also lines that sink sharply, then soar again. And in at least one instance, for nonstore retailers, there’s a curve that shoots directly upwards in a manner almost never seen anywhere else before.
U.S. total retail sales in May were +16.8% month to month, leaving them only -1.4% year over year. Much of the thanks for the m/m improvement goes to ‘motor vehicle and parts’ sales, which were +44.1% m/m, but still negative to the tune of -3.9% y/y. Auto sector sales accounted for the largest share of ‘total retail’ in May, at 22.1%.
