The Chicago Fed's preliminary nowcast of retail & food services sales (ex autos) growth in August is 0.6% MoM and 4.5% YoY, which would be a strong acceleration from growth of 3.7% YoY in July.

• The nowcast is based on positive contributions from all data sources: transactions (+26 bps), foot traffic & sentiment data (+18 bps), and Census data (+15 bps).
• The nowcast for retail & food services sales (ex autos) price growth is 0.3% MoM and 0.9% YoY.
• The inflation-adjusted nowcast of retail sales is 0.3% MoM, matching the pace seen in July.