US DATA: ICSC-Goldman’s weekly read sees +0.1% wk/wk for retail
sales, and +3.1% yr/yr. The report: Weekly retail sales for March
continue to roar like a lion as retail sales increased for the second
consecutive week. Overall, for the week ending March 12, weekly retail
sales rose by 0.1 percent, according to the ICSC-Goldman Sachs Weekly
Chain Store Sales Index. In addition, on a year-over-year basis, retail
sales continued to increase and grew to 3.1 percent. “Customer traffic
was relatively steady over the last weekbased on the ICSC-Goldman Sachs
consumer tracking surveys–but compositionally demand shifted towards
drug stores, dollar stores and wholesale clubs,” said Michael Niemira,
ICSC vice president of research and chief economist. “The latest weeks
consumer spending shift seemingly was more value driven and some of the
discretionary segments, such as apparel and department stores were
somewhat weaker,” Niemira added. See the history table on the MNI main
wire.