A lady carries procuring luggage whereas strolling previous a window show outdoors a retail retailer in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, July 21, 2017. REUTERS/Chris Wattie
OTTAWA, March 18 (Reuters) – Canadian retail gross sales bounced again in January, beating expectations, as consumers ventured out to automotive dealerships and residential enchancment retailers, official knowledge confirmed Friday, although February retail gross sales seemingly fell.
Retail gross sales elevated 3.2% to C$58.94 billion ($46.7 billion) in January, led by larger gross sales of motor autos and elements, Statistics Canada mentioned. Analysts had, on common, forecast a achieve of two.4%.
February retail gross sales probably fell 0.5%, Statscan mentioned in a preliminary estimate.
Gross sales elevated in 9 of 11 subsectors in January, representing 85.5% of retail commerce. In quantity phrases, retail gross sales have been up 2.9%.
“It was a contented new 12 months for Canadian retailers in January, as Canadians offset the distress of renewed pandemic restrictions by doing a whole lot of procuring,” mentioned Avery Shenfeld, chief economist at CIBC Capital Markets, in a word.
The anticipated decline in February was based mostly on responses from 36.6% of firms surveyed, Statscan mentioned. The typical remaining response fee for the survey over the earlier 12 months has been 89.9%.
However a February drop in retail gross sales is unlikely to maneuver the Financial institution of Canada off its present path of a number of fee hikes, mentioned economists.
“Markets will not be that delicate to those month-to-month progress indicators, since its going to take greater than a bump within the street to change the Financial institution of Canada’s trajectory for now,” mentioned Shenfeld.
The Canadian greenback was buying and selling practically unchanged at 1.2631 to the dollar, or 79.17 U.S. cents.
($1 = 1.2630 Canadian {dollars})
Reporting by Julie Gordon in Ottawa; Extra reporting by Fergal Smith in Toronto; Modifying by Jan Harvey
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