Retail Sales and Supply Chain Stress Monitor - 2025-04-15

Supply chains are wide open worldwide. And US retail sales, with and without autos, moved up to new all-times highs (and inventories are still very disciplined). Our fearless prediction: the chatter with blame this good news on tariffs (people stocking up ahead of higher prices). If this had been bad news, the chatter would have blamed tariffs for that, too (people holding off on consumption decisions due to uncertainty). We call this confirmation bias.