U.S. Census Bureau Alert! A review of the Advance monthly sales for retail and food services sales for May 2022.
Source (pdf)
Good morning r/Superstonk! Let's dive into this! Before we get too far into this, please remember retail sales only covers the sale of goods (for example gas)--not services (for example travel). Services make up almost 2/3 of consumer spending.
Still, the price of goods are up and bigly! For example, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:
I have highlighted a few of the spending items we are going to review below. Why is this important? For inflation to continue to rise, you need consumers willing to continue to pay inflated prices (or go on a buyers strike until prices drop). As we will see below, demand is still VERY strong, which will add more fuel to the inflation fire.
Gasoline
Miscellaneous Store
Food and Beverage Store Sales
Food Services & Drinking Places (going to the bar)
Sales at bars and restaurants are up 17.5% from this time last year. Folks are still going out and spending like sailors.
Electronics and appliance stores (GameStop's category)
Sales in this category down 4.5% year-over-year. This counts strictly in store sales (not ecommerce sales), so while brick and mortar sales are dipping, it is great to see RC and GME building out the ecommerce side.
One cause of concern: consumer electronics/software and Video/audio products were two areas where inflation declined--something to keep an eye on!
