Sweden: Resistant retail sales – Nordea Markets

Sweden’s May retail sales came out fairly strong, in line with expectations as they rose 0.2% over the month and by 3.1% over the year, points out Andreas Wallström, Research Analyst at Nordea Markets.

Key Quotes

“Retail sales have shown resistance and held up well over the past year, despite the wobbling housing market.”

“Nevertheless, we continue to see a slowdown in household consumption growth as it is hard to find drivers for growth staying markedly above trend growth.”

“Consequently, we deem the Riksbank’s forecast for annual household consumption growth at 2.5% y/y for 2018-2020 as being too high.”

“Elsewhere, figures showed that trade balance stood at SEK -2.6bn. Both exports and imports have leveled out in recent months.”