It was another rough day for macro forecasters.

Actually, wait. The joke’s on me. And you. Because macro forecasters — “professional” economists — get paid to be wrong. Handsomely. They get paid handsomely to be wrong. It’s the only profession (that I’m aware of, anyway) where you can fail habitually and remain gainfully employed without anyone so much as batting an eye.

Collectively, the professional macro forecasting crowd expected the control group aggregate in the monthly US retail sales report to show a 0.2% gain for June. Instead, control group sales rose 0.9%. That’s a huge difference for the most important aggregate in the release. Without getting too far into the mind-numbing detail, if you’re that far off on your control group retail sales forecast, you’re probably off on your Q2 GDP forecast too.

Consensus was similarly bereft on the ex-autos print, which showed a 0.4% increase, quadruple the expected gain. The ex-autos/gas readout was likewise strong.

As the figure shows, the 0.8% increase (versus +0.2% expected), was the briskest since January 2023’s anomalous surge.

Consensus was off on the main aggregate too. Headline retail sales were unchanged for June versus expectations for a 0.3% decline. May’s small increase was revised up to show a 0.25% jump.

All in all, Tuesday’s update on nominal spending suggested the American consumer was more resilient in Q2 than some observers were inclined to believe. While this won’t matter much for September Fed cut odds, it underscores the notion that there’s no hurry.

Other than a small decline for the sporting goods, hobbies and book stores group, the only categories out of 13 in the release to show a drop for June were gas stations and car dealers.