Australia: Weakness in January retail sales data - ANZ

David Plank, head of Australian economics, points out that the Australian retail sales rose 0.1% m/m in January, below market expectations and marking only a small rebound after the weak December result.

Key Quotes

“In annual terms, sales growth slowed to 2.7% (from 2.8% in December). This is the weakest annual growth since May-2018. In three-month-end annualised terms, sales growth slowed to 0.8%, the lowest rate since the August and September 2017.”

“Discretionary spending, broadly defined, was flat for the third month in a row, slowing the annual pace of discretionary spending growth sharply.”