Consumers became a lot more thrifty in June, and those tightened purse strings led to the worst US monthly retail sales in three years.
20 retailers reported their results for the month of June, and over two-thirds of them missed estimates. Total June sales rose only 0.1%, when Wall Street had hoped for a 0.5% gain. Last year, by comparison, June sales increased 6.7%. The biggest losers were department stores and mass merchants. Target, Costco, and Macy's all missed estimates. High-end stores did surprisingly well, however, with Nordstroms and Saks reporting higher rises than expected.
The disappointing retail rates may have been affected by warm winter weather driving forward summer sales, by the storms that caused power outages throughout the month, or just by a lack of consumer confidence in the economy.