Australian Retail Sales data has been in the doldrums … and continues.
for January -0.3% m/m … and so the first quarter of 2020 gets off to a great start …. not
- expected 0.0% m/m, prior revised to -0.7%
more to come
ABS comment:
- "Bushfires in January negatively impacted a range of retail businesses across a variety of industries"
- "Retailers reported a range of impacts that reduced customer numbers, including interruptions to trading hours and tourism."
- The trend estimate for Australian retail turnover rose 0.1 per cent in January 2020, following a 0.1 per cent rise in December 2019.
- Compared to January 2019, the trend estimate rose 2.3 per cent.
ABS says they see no apparent impact from the virus in January but do say they expect it to hit in the February data. I think they may be onto something yeah ….
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ps. I may have lett a little swear word slip out when posting this headline ….
