Exactly at 10:30 we met the most important data this morning – a British report on changes in the level of retail sales. As reacted pound for so much worse than expected news?
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the estimated volume of retail sale carried out in December 2016 increased y/o/y by 4.3%. At the same time, the December index fell by 1.9% compared to November 2016. The fall was much deeper than assumed is forecast at -0.1% m / m.
The largest contribution to the December results were shops which do not offer food. ONS points out, however, that despite the considerable decline in December retail sales volume, the three-month upward trend has been maintained.
Also, the value of the basis index of retail sales disappoint – core retail sales turned out to be worse than expected and ultimately amounted to 4.9% y/y (instead of the expected 7.6%), which translates into a decrease of equal to 2% on a monthly basis (instead of the expected decline in 0.3%).
The results commented ONS analyst Kate Davies – traders benefited from strong demand at the end of 2016 which was better in terms of sales up by 5.6% in the corresponding period in 2015. However, the effect of December is passing away what is evident in the statistics. We clearly see strong values of small traders – especially butchers – who note extremely strong demand for their products.
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