US retail sales rose by 0.1% mom in April 2025, following an upwardly revised 1.7% surge in March. The modest gain suggests consumers scaled back spending in response to a wave of tariff announcements in early April, yet the result still exceeded market expectations for no change. Biggest increases were seen in sales at food services and drinking places (1.2%), building material and garden equipment supplies dealers (0.8%), furniture (0.3%) and electronics and appliances stores (0.3%). On the other hand, the largest decreases were recorded at sporting goods, hobby, musical instrument,...
US producer prices fell by 0.5% in April 2025, following a revised flat reading in March and defying market expectations of a 0.2% increase. This was the first decline in the PPI since October 2023 and the sharpest drop since April 2020, during the early aftermath of the COVID-19 outbreak. The decline was largely driven by a 0.7% fall in service costs, the largest since data collection began in December 2009, primarily due to a 1.6% decrease in margins for trade services, suggesting businesses may be absorbing some of the impact from higher tariffs. Prices for final demand services...
U.S. Federal Reserve officials feel they need to reconsider the key elements around both jobs and inflation in their current approach to monetary policy, given the inflation experience of the last few years and the possibility that supply shocks and the associated price increases may become more frequent in the years ahead, Fed chair Jerome Powell said Thursday. "We may be entering a period of more frequent, and potentially more persistent, supply shocks—a difficult challenge for the economy and for central banks," Powell said in opening remarks at a two-day conference reconsidering the...