U.S. consumers grew cautious in August, with retail sales falling 0.3%, continuing a period of summer instability.

August’s drop in sales followed a 0.8% rise in July and a 0.7% dip in June.

Economists had been expecting overall retail sales for August to drop by 0.1%.

The U.S. Commerce Department said today the most recent drop was due to weakness in automobile sales. Factoring out the volatile auto sector, sales were up 0.2% last month.

Meanwhile, the U.S. current-account deficit increased to a record US$166.2 billion during April through June from a revised US$147.2 billion in the first quarter, the Commerce Department said.

The larger than expected increase came as imports of goods exceeded exports. Economists had predicted a gap of US$161.0 billion.

A US$150.3 billion second-quarter shortfall in goods-and-services trade was wider than the first-quarter’s US$138.6 billion.

Imports of goods in the second quarter expanded to US$362.9 billion from US$344.7 billion amid higher demand for industrial supplies, capital goods and consumer goods from abroad.

Exports of goods advanced to US$199.3 billion from US$193.9 billion.