Australian retail sales in March 2019, comes in at 0.3% m/m for a beat
- expected +0.2% m/m,
- prior +0.8%
- For the y/y, in at 3.5% (from 3.2% in February)
As part of this release today is the Q1 data for retail sales excluding inflation, AKA retail turnover. Comes in at -0.1% q/q for a very big miss indeed
- expected +0.3%, prior +0.1%
- lowest since 2015, another sign of the weakness in consumption
This will be a drag on Q1 GDP data (due in the first week of June).
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For background to this release: