The Chicago Fed's preliminary nowcast of retail & food services sales (ex autos) growth in February is 0.2% MoM and 3.5% YoY, which would be a deceleration from growth of 3.9% YoY in January.

• The February nowcast is based on positive contributions from transactions (+17 bps) and Census data (+11 bps) offset by foot traffic & sentiment data (-8 bps).

• The nowcast for retail & food services sales (ex autos) price growth in February is 0.2% MoM and 1.6% YoY (up from 1.3% YoY in January.
• With price growth ahead of nominal sales growth, real sales growth is nowcasted at -0.1% MoM.