Source: https://mochatrade.com/learn/glossary/retail-sales

# Retail sales
URL: https://mochatrade.com/learn/glossary/retail-sales
Last modified: 2026-10-17

Retail sales is the Census Bureau's monthly count of what US shops and online stores sold. Consumer spending is about two thirds of the economy, so a surprise reprices [consumer discretionary against staples](https://mochatrade.com/learn/us-market-structure/how-us-stock-prices-form) and [the growth half of the Fed outlook](https://mochatrade.com/learn/us-market-structure/how-the-fed-moves-markets); [Costco counts the same cash at the till](https://mochatrade.com/blog/mocha-markets-weekly-019). The Census sits in the [counts column of the US map](https://mochatrade.com/learn/us-market-structure/us-stock-market-explained).

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