INSTANT VIEW: U.S. retail sales fall again in April

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Sales at U.S. retailers fell for a second straight month in April, pulled down by sluggish gasoline and electronic goods purchases, government data showed on Wednesday.

U.S. import prices climbed again in April as imported oil prices posted their sharpest jump in more than seven years, the Labor Department reported on Wednesday.

KEY POINTS:

RETAILS SALES * The Commerce Department said total retail sales slipped 0.4 percent after falling by a revised 1.3 percent in March, previously reported as a 1.2 percent drop. * Excluding motor vehicles and parts, sales dipped 0.5 percent in April, compared to a 1.2 percent decline the prior month. Vehicles and parts sales rose 0.2 percent after a 2.0 percent plunge in March. * Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast retail sales to be flat in April. Excluding motor vehicles, sales had been predicted to rise 0.2 percent.

EXPORT/IMPORT PRICES * Overall import prices were up 1.6 percent, a second straight monthly increase after a revised 0.2 percent gain in March. * Nonetheless, import prices on a year-over-year basis plunged a record 16.3 percent - a sign that inflation is unlikely to be a short-term problem in view of relatively weak global demand.

COMMENTS:

DOUG BENDER, MANAGING DIRECTOR, MCQUEEN, BALL & ASSOCIATES, BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA:

"It's not really surprising that retail sales fell a little. There was a little better feel to equity markets over the last five or six weeks, but consumers are in retrenchment mode.

"Treasuries have come off some big supply weeks and the market weakened going into the supply. Now Treasuries have had a nice bounce off those lows."

DAVID RESLER, CHIEF ECONOMIST, NOMURA SECURITIES, NEW YORK:

"The back to back gains we had in January and February, which had helped inspired hopes that we were getting out of this recession, just got dealt a significant blow. I'm surprised at the declines and the downward revision to last month. These numbers are certainly discouraging, a bit disheartening. This is pretty uniformly weak."

GUY LEBAS, FIXED INCOME STRATEGIST, JANNEY MONTGOMERY SCOTT, PHILADELPHIA:

"The financial market has been looking for positives in the economy. The market has gotten ahead of itself... With these overwhelmingly soft retail sales numbers, this is taking the wind from the sail (of the recent Treasuries selloff). The retail sales report is a re-acknowledgement we are the midst of a recovery but it will be a slow one. It took us a long time to dig ourselves into this situation, and it will take time to dig ourselves out."

ROBERT BLAKE, SENIOR CURRENCY STRATEGIST, STATE STREET GLOBAL MARKETS, BOSTON:

"The numbers are weak. There's no question. I would say the likelihood is growing that Q2 consumption in the U.S. is going to be negative. This would deal a considerable blow to the green shoots talk and it's possible that would hit some of the recent optimism in the markets and hurt risk appetite."

MICHAEL WOOLFOLK, SENIOR CURRENCY STRATEGIST, BANK OF NEW YORK-MELLON, NEW YORK:

"The green shoots rally was ready for a bit of a correction and we already started to see that overnight. This report is likely going to feed into it. It should be positive for the dollar and negative for the high-yielders and euro. But it doesn't tell us more than we already know, which is that consumers continue to lose their jobs and are unlikely to be out spending money in retail stores. So this is one of the first hard figures for the second quarter, for which we are penciling in a negative number, around -0.3 percent. I think the dollar was oversold. This was not a fundamentally-driven dollar move, and I fully expect euro-dollar to get back below $1.35."

MARKET REACTION: STOCKS: U.S. stock index futures add to losses BONDS: U.S. Treasury debt prices extend gains DOLLAR: U.S. dollar extends losses versus the yen