Kai Risdell

And Vecchio says even if the war in Iran were to end, those other concerns aren't going away.

I'm Justin Ho for Marketplace.

Wall Street today down, though not a whole bunch tomorrow.

As I said, anybody's guess.

We will have the details when we do the numbers.

Nice job, gang.

And by gang, I mean you, us, American consumers.

War or no war, we kept on spending last month.

March retail sales up 1.7% from February, 4% from a year ago.

Good?

Yes.

Mostly?

Also yes, as Daniel Ackerman reports.

There's one thing to keep in mind about the strong sales numbers in March, says Rick Miller of Big Chalk Analytics.

Retail spending numbers are how much money consumers spent on stuff, not how much stuff they got.

The more than 15% jump in spending at gas stations isn't because everyone splurged on a weekend road trip.

Still, stripping out volatile spending on gas and car parts, retail sales still rose 0.6% from the month before.

Jessica Ramirez of the Consumer Collective says some of that is thanks to big tax refunds, but people are also taking on more debt in order to keep spending.

Taking on debt can mean consumers see better days ahead.

But Matt Schultz of LendingTree says there are some red flags.