Bank of America Global Research discusses its preview for this Friday's US Retail sales report for the month of March.

Card spending per household (HH), as measured by BAC aggregated credit and debit cards, was up 0.1% year-over-year (y/y) in March. Card spending per HH fell sharply by 1.5% month-over-month (m/m) in March on a seasonally-adjusted (SA) basis. We forecast a below-consensus 1.0% m/m decline in the Census Bureau's retail sales ex-autos figure for March," BofA notes.

"On a m/m SA basis, card spending was particularly weak in gas, furniture, home improvement and department stores. Meanwhile, airline spending continued to grow robustly. We expect a consensus-like 0.5% decrease in core control retail sales (retail sales ex autos, gas, building materials and restaurants)," BofA adds.