Canada: Retail sales unchanged in December – RBC Economics

Canada has just released retail sales data with no changes,Nathan Janzen from RBC Economics reports. The USD/CAD pair fell with the news but has recovered to the previous level and is currently trading at 1.3257.

Key quotes

“Canadian retail sales ended 2019 about where they ended 2018. Excluding price increases, sale volumes in December were up just 0.1% from a year prior.”

“Sales on a month-over-month basis were unchanged from November, both including and excluding prices, leaving overall consumer spending on track to post another lackluster increase in Q4 of last year - and in line with our expectation that overall GDP increased little if at all in the quarter.”

“E-commerce sales were up a whopping 31.5% from a year ago in December.”

“We think the Bank of Canada will ultimately look through most of those transitory disruptions, but underlying growth trends have also been softer, and we continue to pencil in a rate cut from the central bank in April.”