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Advance Monthly Sales for Retail and Food Services
THE CENSUS BUREAU of the U.S. Department of Commerce releases the Advance Monthly Sales for Retail and Food Services report, known on Wall Street simply as the retail sales report, about two weeks after the end of the record month, at 8:30 a.m. (ET). The report, which presents preliminary estimates of the nominal (non-inflation-adjusted) dollar value of sales for the retail sector, as well as the month-to-month change in that value, is available on the Census Bureau’s website,
www.census.gov/retail. These releases are avidly followed by economists and analysts and have been known to generate serious jolts to the financial markets.
The reason for the intense interest in the retail sales report ...