Eurozone Sales Drop in September

Euro zone retail sales fell more than expected in September, data showed on Wednesday, as shoppers held back with purchases amid a slow economic recovery weighed down by record high unemployment and tight access to credit.

The volume of retail trade fell 0.6 percent on the month after a revised 0.5 percent rise in August, the EU’s statistics office Eurostat said. Analysts polled by Reuters expected only a 0.4 percent decline.

Sales of both food and non-food products fell and the volume of sales of automotive fuels was flat on the month.

Compared with the same period last year, September retail sales were up 0.3 percent, following three straight months of declines, the data showed.

Domestic demand in the euro zone is stifled by the bloc’s longest recession since the creation of the euro in 1999. It is also dented by record high unemployment of 12.2 percent and uncertainty over when the economy will pick up more strongly.

The decline in retail sales was especially significant in the southern Europe, with Portugal recording an all-time low with a 6.2 percent slump on the month and Spain’s 2.5 percent decline was the biggest since April 2012.

via Reuters

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Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza