Chicago Fed Advance Retail Trade Summary: About CARTS

Chicago Fed Advance Retail Trade Summary (CARTS)

About CARTS

CARTS combines eight weekly indicators for retail sales (including payment card transactions, retail foot traffic, gasoline sales, and consumer sentiment) with the U.S. Census Bureau’s monthly data on retail & food services sales excluding motor vehicles and parts (ex. auto) in a time-consistent fashion. The result is a Weekly Index of Retail Trade that, when aggregated to a monthly frequency, matches the available Census Bureau data.

The figure below shows the latest seasonally adjusted month-over-month (log) percent changes in these eight weekly time series. The top left corners of each panel contain correlation coefficients (R) between each of these data series and the Census Bureau’s monthly data series on retail & food services sales ex. auto for the full sample and excluding the year 2020 (ex. 2020). By construction, this correlation coefficient is 1 for the Weekly Index of Retail Trade.

Panel A shows Consumer Edge data with full sample R equal to 0.89 and ex. 2020 R equal 0.54. — Notes: CARTS stands for Chicago Fed Advance Retail Trade Summary. EIA stands for U.S. Energy Information Administration. R is the correlation coefficient between each of the eight data series (the black lines in each panel) that are used as inputs to CARTS—specifically, its Weekly Index of Retail Trade—and the U.S. Census Bureau’s monthly data series on retail & food services sales ex. auto (the same red line in each panel).
Sources: Authors’ calculations based on data from Haver Analytics, Consumer Edge, Bloomberg Second Measure, Numerator, Facteus, SafeGraph, Advan Research, and Morning Consult.

Panel B shows Bloomberg Second Measure data with full sample R equal to 0.84 and ex. 2020 R equal to 0.75. — Notes: CARTS stands for Chicago Fed Advance Retail Trade Summary. EIA stands for U.S. Energy Information Administration. R is the correlation coefficient between each of the eight data series (the black lines in each panel) that are used as inputs to CARTS—specifically, its Weekly Index of Retail Trade—and the U.S. Census Bureau’s monthly data series on retail & food services sales ex. auto (the same red line in each panel).
Sources: Authors’ calculations based on data from Haver Analytics, Consumer Edge, Bloomberg Second Measure, Numerator, Facteus, SafeGraph, Advan Research, and Morning Consult.

For more details on CARTS v. 2.2, see the recent Chicago Fed Insights article. Later this year, we will update the accompanying Chicago Fed Working Paper No. 2021-05 as well. The current version of the working paper serves as legacy documentation for CARTS v. 1.0.

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