June Retail Sales Report Leads to More Questions

Today’s retail sales release has us scratching our heads.

The posted number showed strong retail sales for the month of June (ex-autos) with the control group indicating +0.9% MoM gains (the control group feeds into GDP data).

If one scrolled lower in the report, they would notice that those figures were seasonally adjusted.

The non-seasonally adjusted number showed a whopping nearly 6% decline MoM for retail sales ex-autos, tying the largest drop ever since the inception of the index.

Where lies the truth on the state of the consumer….?

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Leland Abrams, Portfolio Manager
Leland Abrams, Portfolio Manager
Leland Abrams serves as Chief Investment Officer for the investment manager, Wynkoop LLC. Leland is Lead Portfolio Manager of an NARMBS income-oriented fund at Catalyst Funds. Prior to joining Wynkoop in September 2016 as Principal and Portfolio Manager, Mr. Abrams spent five and a half years at Candlewood Investment Group LP. Most recently, he was the RMBS Sector Manager responsible for overseeing approximately $1 billion in RMBS investments across the firm. Previously, Mr. Abrams spent two and a half years as a non-agency mortgage and esoteric ABS trader and credit analyst at United Capital Markets, Inc. Prior to that, Mr. Abrams was a Credit Analyst and Trader at Dresdner Bank, AG (Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein). Mr. Abrams holds a B.A. in Economics from Bucknell University. Mr. Abrams served as a Director and member of the Audit Committee for Front Yard Residential Corp, a public REIT headquartered in Christiansted, VI until the company’s sale in January 2021.

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