Note: These are weekly current and constant dollar retail & food services sales excluding motor vehicles & parts (ex. auto) estimates at seasonally adjusted monthly rates (SAMR) from CARTS (Chicago Fed Advance Retail Trade Summary).
Sources: Chicago Fed staff’s calculations based on data from Haver Analytics, Adobe Analytics, Advan Research, Bloomberg Second Measure, Consumer Edge, Facteus, Morning Consult, Numerator, SafeGraph, and State Street PriceStats.

Notes: CARTS stands for the Chicago Fed Advance Retail Trade Summary. The gauge plots depict the latest CARTS Nowcasts for retail & food services sales and prices excluding motor vehicles & parts (ex. auto) in relation to historical percentiles for the seasonally adjusted (SA) month-over-month (m/m) percent changes (% chg.) in each since 2018. Markers are shown above by quartile, highlighting the minimum (0th percentile), median (50th percentile), and maximum (100th percentile) values.
Sources: Chicago Fed staff’s calculations based on data from Haver Analytics, Adobe Analytics, Advan Research, Bloomberg Second Measure, Consumer Edge, Facteus, Morning Consult, Numerator, SafeGraph, and State Street PriceStats.

Notes: Census indicates that the data are from the U.S. Census Bureau's Monthly Retail Trade Survey. CARTS stands for the Chicago Fed Advance Retail Trade Summary; the CARTS Nowcast is the latest projection of the Census Bureau’s data (the black data point plotted). All data excluding motor vehicles & parts (ex. auto) are shown as seasonally adjusted (SA) month-over-month (m/m) percent changes (% chg.).
Sources: Chicago Fed staff’s calculations based on data from Haver Analytics, Adobe Analytics, Advan Research, Bloomberg Second Measure, Consumer Edge, Facteus, Morning Consult, Numerator, SafeGraph, and State Street PriceStats.

Notes: CARTS stands for the Chicago Fed Advance Retail Trade Summary. The CARTS Sales Nowcast is for the seasonally adjusted (SA) month-over-month (m/m) percent change (% chg.) in retail & food services sales excluding motor vehicles & parts (ex. auto). The transactions category indicates the contribution to the latest CARTS Sales Nowcast from consumer transactions data. The foot traffic & sentiment category indicates the contribution to the latest CARTS Sales Nowcast from foot traffic, gas sales, and consumer sentiment data. The Census category indicates the contribution to the latest CARTS Sales Nowcast from previously released values of the U.S. Census Bureau's Monthly Retail Trade Survey.
Sources: Chicago Fed staff’s calculations based on transactions data from Bloomberg Second Measure, Consumer Edge, Facteus, Numerator, and SafeGraph; foot traffic & sentiment data from Advan Research, the U.S. Energy Information Administration from Haver Analytics, and Morning Consult; and retail sales data from the U.S. Census Bureau from Haver Analytics.

* A Visa Spending Momentum Index (SMI) value of zero denotes an equal number of accounts increasing and decreasing spending from a year ago.
Notes: Census indicates the U.S. Census Bureau's Monthly Retail Trade Survey. CARTS stands for the Chicago Fed Advance Retail Trade Summary; the CARTS Nowcast is the monthly average of the Weekly Index of Retail Trade. Both the Census Bureau and CARTS indexes reflecting sales excluding motor vehicles & parts (ex. auto) are shown as seasonally adjusted (SA) year-over-year (y/y) percent changes (% chg.).
Sources: Chicago Fed staff’s calculations based on data from Haver Analytics, Advan Research, Bloomberg Second Measure, Consumer Edge, Facteus, Morning Consult, Numerator, and SafeGraph.

Notes: The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis’s (BEA) monthly chain-weighted price index for retail & food services prices excluding motor vehicles & parts (ex. auto) was discontinued in July 2024, which meant that no further data for this index was available after May 2024. The related monthly Consumer Price Index (CPI) for this category of spending is constructed from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ CPI for commodities ex. auto. CARTS stands for the Chicago Fed Advance Retail Trade Summary; the CARTS Nowcast is the monthly average of the Weekly Index of Retail Prices from June 2024 onward. All three indexes in the figure have been transformed to seasonally adjusted (SA) year-over-year (y/y) percent changes (% chg.).
Sources: Chicago Fed staff’s calculations based on data from Haver Analytics, Adobe Analytics, and State Street PriceStats.