Canada March retail sales - Negative in real terms
March Canadian retail sales with a 0.9% increase are stronger than the preliminary estimate of 0.6% but the increase was more than fully explained by price gains, largely gasoline, with sales falling by 0.7% in real terms.
Sales were up by 1.4% ex autos but down by 0.1% ex autos and gasoline. Auto sales fell by 0.5% but gasoline surged by 12.4% on price gains. In real terms sales fell by 0.8% ex autos.
Sales rose by 2.1% (not annualized) in Q1. Despite the weakness in March, gains in January and February saw Q1 sales rising by solid 1.2% increase in real terms which will support the coming week’s Q1 GDP release.
The preliminary estimate for April retail sales is for an increase of 0.6%. With gasoline prices continuing to rise in April, if less sharply than in March, that is likely to mean another weak month in real terms, but probably not as negative as in the March data.
