"Certainly retail sales are an important factor, and it's one that economists track to get a sense of where the economy is going. But it is also important to recognize that retail sales don't give us the entire picture of consumer spending, and that's for one simple reason: Retail sales do not include spending on services, and service spending by consumers accounts for over half of total consumer spending," Walden explains.

"So it's important to track another measure that economists have in their toolbox called personal consumption spending. That includes retail spending, but it also includes spending on services. And when we look at that number recently, we actually get a much more optimistic picture of the consumer in the economy because we have had growth in personal consumption spending," he explains. "And indeed it's been growing and performing better than retail sales."