BofA on USA: May retail sales: May-be we can keep spending

Research evidence excerpt

BofA on USA: May retail sales: May-be we can keep spending

Exhibit 6: Discretionary spending as a share of total spending was Exhibit 7: Real control group retail sales would accelerate if our

down in May ’26 vs. May ’25 for all income cohorts forecasts for control group retail sales & inflation prove correct

Share of discretionary spending in total spending per HH by income (%) Census Bureau control group retail sales (3 month annualized % change)

80% 10% Nominal Inflation adjustment Real

May-19 May-25 May-26 8%

6%

75% 4%

2%

0%

70% -2%

-4%

-6%

65% -8%

Lower Middle Higher Jan-'24 Jul-'24 Jan-'25 Jul-'25 Jan-'26

Source: BAC internal data. Discretionary spending is total spending excluding gas, groceries and Source: BAC internal data, Bureau of Economic Analysis, Census Bureau, Haver Analytics. The

utilities. We exclude 2020-24 to simplify the chart. inflation adjustment uses a price index reported by Haver Analytics. It converts nominal spending

BofA GLOBAL RESEARCH into real spending, so it is negative when inflation is positive and vice versa. BofA Global Research

projections for May are represented by the dotted line and clear boxes above. We assume nominal

control group retail sales are in line with our forecasts, and we estimate inflation based on the May

CPI data.

BofA GLOBAL RESEARCH

Exhibit 8: Total card ex gas spending edged down but remained Exhibit 9: Higher-income HHs continued to show higher growth than

positive in May lower income in total ex gas spending

BAC aggregated monthly total card ex gas spending per HH (monthly and 3m Daily total card ex gas spending per HH by income group (y/y % change of

moving average of monthly levels, % m/m, SA) the 7-day MA of daily spending levels)

2.0% 10%

Monthly m/m % 3M Average m/m % Lower Higher

8%

1.0% 6%

4%

2% 0.0%