UK retail sales disappoint
18 January 2008
After a mixed set of results from individual retailers over the past couple of weeks, official figures from the Office of National Statistics released today highlighted that general retailers reported their worst performance in 13 years. Sales fell 0.4%m/m taking the annual growth to 2.7%y/y (the market had been expecting figures of +0.2%m/m and +3.3%y/y). The weaker figures come despite heavy discounting by many retailers with the implied deflator measure of prices at its lowest since September.
The news will add further weight to the argument that the Bank of England will be forced to cut interest rates when they meet in February to boost the fragile UK economy. Consequently, Sterling fell against both the Dollar and the Euro to 1.9565 and 1.3341 respectively.