Euro Area: retail sales declining, no positive signs for four months. Nobody does anything
Things are not going well in the Eurozone, and this is tangible and even today we have yet another negative index.
Eurozone retail sales fell 0.3% in September, marking the third consecutive month of decline and beating market expectations of a 0.2% decline, suggesting that consumer demand continues to face ongoing challenges . due to persistently high inflation and high financing costs on a multi-year basis. In the end, high interest rates imposed to fight inflation have
Sales of non-food products slumped 1.9%, marking the biggest decline since June 2022, with online commerce also down 1.9%. Additionally, fuel trade fell 0.9%, marking the fourth consecutive period of contraction. In contrast, sales of food, beverages and tobacco increased by 1.4%. Among the bloc's largest economies, trade fell for the fourth consecutive month in Germany (-0.8%) and Italy (-0.4%) and for the third consecutive month in the Netherlands (-0.8%) . Sales instead increased both in France (0.4%) and in Spain (0.2%).
Here is the relevant graph:
So we have now gone 4 months without a sign of an increase in retail sales in the Eurozone. Not only that, but in the last year out of 12 months there were 3 states with a plus sign, the others were either negative or without growth. A situation that elsewhere would create a lot of nervousness is being taken with great calm by the national authorities and the ECB.
Unfortunately, things are not going well and we also know this from the GDP, whose growth fell to 0.1% on an annual basis in the last quarter. Instead, the ECB is worried about inflation and appears determined to increase rates further with every fluttering of leaves, even at the cost of further depressing an already depressed economy.
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The article Euro Area: retail sales falling, no positive signs for four months. Nobody does anything comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/euro-area-vendite-al-dettaglio-al-calo-niente-segni-positivi-per-quattro-mesi-nessuno-fa-nulla/ on Wed, 08 Nov 2023 15:27:11 +0000.