Consumers continued to curtail their spending last month as rising gasoline prices dampened purchases of other goods, a fresh indication of a cooling economy, the Associated Press reports. The cutback unexpectedly pushed retail sales into negative territory in June, when they dipped 0.1 percent after edging up by the same amount in May, the Commerce Department reported Friday.
The decline surprised economists, who had predicted an increase of 0.4 percent for retail sales in June. Still, the $363.8 billion estimated to have been rung up in June marked a 5.9 percent increase from the same month in 2005.
