PREVIEW - US Retail Sales are due at 13:30BST/08:30EDT

EXPECTATIONS: The consensus expects headline retail sales to rise by 1.4% M/M in March (prev. 0.6%), with the annual rate cooling to 2.4% Y/Y (prev. 3.7%).  RETAIL SALES PROXIES: Bank of Americaʼs March consumer checkpoint report suggests that retail sales should be firm; the bank’s card data shows broad-based consumer spending strength, with total credit and debit card spending per household rose +4.3% Y/Y in March (vs 3.2% Y/Y in its February report), the strongest pace since early 2023, while spending at petrol stations jumped 16.5% M/M amid higher gasoline prices. Under the bonnet, ex-gasoline card spending was up 3.6% Y/Y, suggesting underlying demand across core retail and services categories remained resilient. Analysts say this could point to a solid control-group reading within the retail sales data, and might reduce the risk that strength in the headline is dismissed as purely price-driven.  INCOME SPLIT: Elsewhere, BofA says the income split of Americans remains important; higher-income households continue to outspend middle- and lower-income cohorts, and while the gap narrowed slightly in March, that was largely because fuel accounts for a bigger share of lower-income budgets. More notably, discretionary spending growth eased for lower-income households but increased for other groups, pointing to an uneven consumer backdrop rather than a uniformly strong one.  TAX REFUNDS: BofA says that tax refunds are another near-term support; larger refunds are providing a meaningful boost to discretionary spending and debt paydown, though the benefit is skewed towards higher-income households and may prove temporary against other broader cost pressures.