INSIGHTS Insights for 6-20-19 By Staff Monday, June 17, 2019 1:59 PM "The consumer is firmly back on track: the first quarter’s softness was misleading."-Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, commenting to Market Watch late last week after the Commerce Department reported that retail sales rose 0.5 percent in May with broad-based gains. In addition, April sales were revised up to a 0.3 percent gain (compared with the initial report of a 0.2 percent decline).