Economic Report:

Did the stimulus checks do any good? Not in July. According to a report from Thomas Reuters, 65 percent of retailers missed their July sales estimates. The last of the more than $100 billion dollars worth of stimulus checks went out in the middle of July, but the majority had already been sent in the previous two months. Wal-Mart was one of the retailers that missed estimates. The company had projected a 3.4 percent sales increase, but only saw 3 percent.