US DATA: ICSC sales for Jun 18 wk: “Despite the Father’s Day sales
incentive consumers continued to hold back on their discretionary
spending and gave retailers their second week of sales declines this
past week. Overall, for the week ending June 18, weekly retail sales
slipped by 0.7 percent, according to the ICSC-Goldman Sachs Weekly Chain
Store Sales Index. On a year-over-year basis retail sales continued to
moderate and slowed from the prior week to 2.2 percent.”