Today, the U.S. Census Bureau released its latest nominal read of retail sales, showing an increase of 0.1% from March. It also showed a gain of 3.7% on a year-over-year basis on an aggregate of all items, including food, fuel, and healthcare services.

Nominal discretionary retail sales -- including home furnishings, home garden and building materials, consumer electronics and department store sales -- rose 0.84% from March. That's an increase of 1.8% above the level seen in April 2012, while, adjusting for inflation, real discretionary retail sales rose just 0.32% over the same period.

On a nominal basis, there had appeared to be a rough correlation between strong home value appreciation and strong retail spending preceding the housing bust, and an even stronger correlation when home values started to decline. The following chart shows the year-over-year change to nominal discretionary retail sales and the year-over-year change

Whenever a key economic indicator shows weakness in the latest monthly update, the usual worries arise. No explanation required in the current environment and so today’s retail sales report for April will draw a fresh round of dark predictions from the usual suspects. And perhaps they’ll be right this time. But for now, it’s still premature to argue that the modest growth train has derailed, even if it looks that way by focusing on the latest data point.

Consumer spending increased a weak 0.1% in April, although that compares favorably to March’s 0.5% decline, the biggest monthly slide since last June. No one will mistake the latest numbers as anything other than a sign that retail consumption has turned sluggish again. But for those who are quick to jump on the listless number du jour as a sign of macro apocalypse, a bit of perspective may inspire a less-strident

Retail sales came in slightly better than expected this morning, but are still consistent with a rather sluggish economy. The year-over-year rate of change was +3.7%, which is well off the 2011 post-recession high of 9.2%, but still growing modestly. We've tended to see negative readings in this data prior to recessions, so there's a silver lining in the weak single-digit reading.

Here's more detail via Econoday:

Headline retail sales edged up despite a decline in gasoline prices. Core sales actually were somewhat healthy. Retail sales increased 0.1 percent, following a drop of 0.5 percent in March (originally down 0.4 percent). Analysts forecast a 0.3 percent decline. Motor vehicles were unexpectedly up 1.0 percent after a 0.6 percent dip in March. Unit new motor vehicle sales slipped in April but from high levels, according to manufacturers' data.

Ex-auto sales in April slipped 0.1 percent after decreasing 0.4 percent in March