EU Retail Sales Jump 1.2% in August

Euro zone retail sales jumped much more than expected in August, data showed on Friday, pointing to stronger demand from households that could help economic growth in the third quarter.

The European Union’s statistics office Eurostat said retail sales in the 18 countries sharing the euro rose 1.2 percent month-on-month in August for a 1.9 percent year-on-year gain.

Economists polled by Reuters had expected a 0.1 percent monthly and a 0.5 percent annual increase after sales contracted 0.4 percent month-on-month in July and rose 0.5 percent on the year.

Though volatile, retail sales data is a proxy for household demand, one of the weaker elements of the euro zone recovery that stalled in the second quarter.

Eurostat data showed sales of non-food products, and fuel at petrol stations made the biggest contribution to the monthly rise of the index in August, with the euro zone’s biggest economy Germany reporting the biggest gain of 2.5 percent.

via CNBC

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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