So on the surface all was good. The seasonally adjusted surface. because
the unadjusted headline number in February actually posted the first
sequential decline since 2010, as retail sales declined from $382.4
billion to $381.0 billion:
this was the first sequential decline in retail sales in the month of February in three years.
Yet somehow the decline actually translated into a growth of $4.4
billion on an adjusted basis, meaning the entire beat was, once more,
purely in the calendar adjustment.
