U.S. retail sales fell 0.6% in July from June, falling outside a range of Journal historical forecasts for the indicator.

Excluding motor vehicles, the Commerce Department reported retail sales fell 0.3% in July from the prior month, outside a range of Journal historical forecasts for the indicator.

For select economic indicators, including the retail sales report, Dow Jones Newswires measures whether a reported statistic falls outside a historical range of WSJ forecasting, and if so, by how much. Those forecast ranges are based on an archive of surveys of economists the Journal has conducted over the past decade.

The gauge provides a way to measure the relative volatility of any one particular indicator, compared not just with a contemporary forecast in the days ahead of an indicator's release, but also compared with its track record surprising forecasters over time.

In the case of July's retail sales, the range of WSJ forecasts relative to the actual reported number over that 10-year period was -0.4 percentage point and +0.3 percentage point. For the retail sales excluding motor vehicles, the historical range was -0.4 percentage point to +0.3 percentage point.

July's retail sales were lower than a Wall Street Journal forecast of a 0.1% increase. Excluding motor vehicles, the Commerce Department said retail sales were lower than consensus expectations for a 0.2% increase.

The ranges are made up of the median of historical forecasts that came in lower than the reported number and the median of forecasts that came in higher.