- Prior was -0.2%
- Retail sales ex-autos vs +1.2% expected
- Prior ex-autos -0.6%
- Sales of $70.4 billion in November
- Core sales +1.6% vs -0.5% prior
- December advance sales -0.5%
The core sales number is a strong one but part of that was the reopening of liquor stores in British Columbia after a strike. One sign of a better turn in the housing market was that higher sales were also recorded at building material and garden equipment and supplies dealers (+2.1%) in November. The increase marks a second consecutive monthly gain for this subsector.
The weaker spot in the report was the advance number for December, though I expect a big part of that is the decline in gasoline prices. This week's CPI report showed gasoline prices down 7.1% m/m from November to December. Goods prices also fell 1.2% m/m in the CPI report, which could have been another drag.
The latest RBC data on the Canadian consumer showed a slight decline in three-month average but there were strong gains in clothing and apparel as discretionary goods spending picked up.
Their metric of sales excluding autos and gas rose 0.9% in November and 0.7% in December.
The big surprise of 2025 for me was the resilience (if not strength) of the Canadian consumer despite declining housing prices and the angst about Trump's trade war. Those factors certainly drove a large decline in Canadian tourism to the United States but domestically, it didn't seem to change spending patterns. That underscores that spending is really all about jobs, not sentiment. There has been some uptick in layoffs in the past year and certainly a drop in immigration so those are the factors to watch going forward, but I'd say the risks are two-sided at this point -- at least until AI and robotics starts eating up the jobs market.
