Yahoo Finance Live anchors discuss U.S. retail sales for April.

Video Transcript

BRIAN SOZZI: Retail sales numbers for the month of April are out today. The numbers coming in just below estimates at a 9/10 for percent increase, compared to the expected increase of about 1%. Retail earnings, meanwhile, officially kicked off today. And really, in many respects, I think that overshadows just a little bit some of these results.

JULIE HYMAN: They-- yes, they do. But we got to talk about these retail sales numbers. Because indeed, we saw the headline number coming in a little bit light of estimates. But if you back out autos, if you back out autos and gas, both of those figures actually came in ahead of estimates. So Ex Autos, month over month, retail sales rising 6/10 of a percent in April.

Ex Autos and gas up 1%, and the control group up 1% as well. What's also eye-popping to me were the revisions from the month of March. We saw some really dramatic revisions upward-- that control group going from a drop of a 1/10 of 1% to a gain of 1.1%. That was the revised reading. So that, to me, actually shows some strength on these headline numbers.

BRAD SMITH: Yeah, that upward revision-- 7/10 of a percent for the month of March. And even as we think about the sequential basis here, going from March to April, the retail trade sales up 7/10 of a percent from March 2022. And then 6.7% above last year. And we talk about gas and the impact of that-- of course, as we think about the amount that consumers are paying in gas, and how much that also hits on some of the discretionary spending, as well, it's hard not to see that playing out in this report, as well as in some of the earnings reports that we've seen this morning.

BRIAN SOZZI: You have to wonder if this retail report is really as good as it gets. Because some of these retailers that have reported in the past two weeks have noted that the later stages of April is when things started to slow down, which, of course, coincides-- as we're showing on the screen-- with gas prices going back on the rise.

JULIE HYMAN: Well, we have to look under the hood at this report. Gasoline sales-- and it's important to remember, when we're talking about these numbers, we are talking about not volumes, but dollar volumes, right? So it's not inflation-adjusted. Gasoline station sales actually fell 2.7% in April from March. To your point, Sozz, they're probably going to go back up again, that particular metric.

But I'm looking at the areas of strength. Miscellaneous store retailers-- I'm not exactly sure what category that is up-- 4% last month. Non-store retailers in that category, I do know, is almost exclusively Amazon-- up 2.1%. Which is interesting, considering what we heard in Amazon's earnings. Food services and drinking places, up 2%. So those were some of the areas where we saw the biggest increases over the month.

BRIAN SOZZI: Is there a deli meat category in there? Because I bet you that would be down.

JULIE HYMAN: Is there? Let's see. Is there a deli--

BRIAN SOZZI: Salami line. Salami line.

JULIE HYMAN: Grocery stores-- grocery stores down a tenth of 1%.

BRIAN SOZZI: That includes salami.

BRAD SMITH: "Miscellaneous" is a lot of the-- my beloved Bushwick stores out there--

JULIE HYMAN: There you go.

BRAD SMITH: --in Brooklyn.