Highlights of the Canadian retail sales report for July from Statistics Canada:
- Overall sales -0.1%
- Prior was +1.1% (revised to +1.2%)
- Prior ex-autos was +1.5%
- Ex-autos, ex-fuel down 0.7%
Ex-autos were a touch overdue for a pullback after six straight months of gains.
Canada Retail Sales come out weaker than expectations for the headline and the ex Auto component.
There are no fresh reasons to worry about the Canadian consumer here. June sales were a record high and some of the underlying metrics that point to consumer confidence like furniture sales (+4.0%) were strong.
The consumer has been carrying the Canadian economy for a long time and the Bank of Canada is focused on exports and business investment picking up the slack.
USD/CAD rose 20 pips immediately after the report.
