July retail sales drop was first in 5 months

Weak reports, rebound in oil send stocks lower From Wire Dispatches • August 14, 2008 Retail sales delivered the weakest performance in five months in July as shoppers shunned autos while they paid more for gas. With the mass mailings of $92 billion in federal stimulus checks now just a memory, there is concern that the fragile economy could slow even more the rest of this year. The Commerce Department reported yesterday that retail sales fell 0.1 percent last month, the first decline since a 0.5 percent tumble in February. It was a worse showing than the flat reading economists had been expecting and followed a revised but still weak 0.3 percent June increase. Wall Street found enough negative news yesterday to send the Dow Jones industrial average to its second triple-digit loss in a row, while other indexes were slightly... [read full story]