Retail Sales Confirm the Negative Trend in Britain
The retail sales report for December was just published and it was a terrible one. We saw sales post a decent jump in November coming at 1.4% on the report released last month which was also revised lower today to 1.3%, but it seems that the jump was attributed to Black Friday because they dived again in December. Let’s have a look at the report:
| UK Retail Sales Figures | Actual | Expected | Previous |
| December Retail Sales | -0.9% | -0.8% | 1.3% |
| Core Retail Sales | -1.3% | -0.6% | 1.0% |
| YoY Retail Sales | 3.0% | 3.6% | 3.4% |
| Core YoY Retail Sales | 2.6% | 3.8% | 3.5% |
As you can see, all the numbers for December are red since they all missed expectations. Core retail sales posted a major decline that month, wiping out the jump in November. The numbers for November are also red because they were all revised one or two points lower.
So, retail sales get back to the declining trend that started to form in September and October. November was skewed by Black Friday but sales for December were even worse, so the declining trend is now confirmed. Everything is headed down in the UK.
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