estimating PCE

September CPI: Using the CPI and Retail Sales to preview PCE in GDP

Included below is a table taken from the retail sales report for September; notice that the 3 month change in sales from the 2nd quarter to the 3rd quarter is in the third column, and the change from the 3rd quarter from a year ago is in the 4th column. Now notice that seasonally adjusted sales for the July to September period are up 1.1% over the April to June period, and up 4.4% over the July to September period of a year earlier.