Government data is coming soon, but not yet.

From American public media.

This is Marketplace.

In Los Angeles, I'm Kyle Rizzdall.

It is Monday, today 17 November.. Good as always to have you along,

everybody. You know, when you come back from being out of the office for a while, a week or maybe two,

if you're lucky for a vacation or something, and then you open your work email and you spend

hours plowing through it all? That, except for 44 days away,

and when you're allowed to come back to your government's statistical job, the whole economy

is waiting for you to start producing again. All of which I mentioned, because the last data

we had on retail sales in this economy usually comes from the Census Bureau. The last data we have

is from August, TBD on when we're going to get those figures for September and October, if

at all, as the Bureau works through its backlog. In the meanwhile, though, we are going to get

quarterly earnings from a bunch of big retailers this week, starting with Home Depot tomorrow,

Lowe's Target and Walmart

to follow. So using them as a proxy, Marketplace's Henriette previews what those results might

tell us about the health of retail and about the consumers who power it as holiday shopping season

looms. Big retail companies will tell investors this week how much money they brought in between

August and October, but they'll also likely talk about how many things they sold.

And that's what Gorov Chabra, managing directorate Alex Partners, will be paying attention to.

When a consumer walks in and buys fewer things at a higher price, that could result in a higher revenue performance by retailers.

Fine for those big box retailers, but if consumers are buying less stuff overall, that might not be

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