It’s hard to look ahead by looking back, but since there’s no alternative it’s everyone’s favorite sport.
So it goes in economic forecasting. We’re all reliant on yesterday’s numbers. Beggars can’t be choosy, but they’re always busy, which brings us to this morning’s update on retail sales for February. The news isn’t good, but it’s not necessarily getting worse, or so it appears. For the moment, that constitutes progress and perhaps even reason for hope.
As our chart below shows, retail sales contracted in February by a slight 0.1% on a seasonally adjusted basis. That’s no reason to cheer, but it’s a heck of a lot better than the steep 1%-3% monthly drops in the last four months of last year.
January’s 1.8% advance for retail sales suggested that maybe the bleeding had stopped, although that idea is again on the defensive in light of last month’s modest setback.