U.S. consumers put a lid on their spending to kick off 2025, potentially indicating weaker economic growth prospects.

According to Census Bureau data, retail sales tumbled by 0.9 percent in January after increasing by 0.7 percent in December 2024.

The consensus forecast suggested a 0.1 percent drop.

Last month’s decline was the sharpest drop since March 2023, and market watchers attributed the lackluster consumer spending to harsh winter weather...

U.S. retail sales dropped by the most in nearly two years in January, likely weighed down by frigid temperatures, wildfires and motor vehicle shortages, suggesting a sharp slowdown in economic growth early in the first quarter.

But the larger-than-expected and across the board decline in retail sales reported by the Commerce Department on Friday probably does not reflect a material shift in consumer spending as it also followed four straight months of hefty increases...

U.S. retail sales dropped sharply last month, in part because cold weather kept more Americans indoors, denting sales at car dealers and most other stores.

Retail sales fell 0.9% in January from the previous month, the Commerce Department said, after two months of healthy gains. It was a much bigger drop than economists expected and the biggest decline in a year.

Remember the time a group of artists built a secret apartment inside the Providence Place mall and lived there (rent-free) for parts of four years?

Their story is about to make the big screen.

On March 8, South by Southwest will show the world premiere of “Secret Mall Apartment,” a documentary on the project that captured attention across the globe after Michael Townsend and his friends were caught by mall security in 2007. (Townsend was banned for life from the mall. Talk about a soul-crushing penalty … if he had been a 13-year-old.)

Crystal Mall’s parking lots used to be so crowded that parents would line up to drop off their teenagers near one of the entrances rather than search for a spot.  

Now, the vast stretches of cracked pavement surrounding this 1980s-era regional mall on Connecticut’s coast have more weeds than cars. Valued by an appraiser at $153 million as recently as 2012, Crystal Mall sold in June for just over $9.5 million in a foreclosure auction.