Consumers south of the border spent less than expected in July as a boom in retail sales the month before cooled while efforts to reopen the economy stalled.
U.S. retail sales rose 1.2% for the month, against the expected increase of 2.3% from economists surveyed by Dow Jones.
The news wasn’t all a letdown, however: Excluding autos, the gain was 1.9%, ahead of the 1.2% estimate, according to the U.S. Commerce Department.
Considered a mirror of the economy that gets two-thirds of its activity from consumers, retail sales saw an 8.4% surge in June that included huge gains in furniture and appliance sales. However, those gains largely reversed themselves as a resurgence in COVID-19 cases caused reopening activities to slow.
