Thursday, March 20, 2008
An odd-looking jump in retail sales
Posted by David Smith at 10:00 AM
Category: Thoughts and responses

While retailers have been talking doom and gloom, and consumer confidence is very weak, the official figures showed strong retail sales last month, with a jump of 1% on the month and 5.5% on a year earlier. Food sales were very strong, up 1.6% in volume, suggesting either that consumers were comforting themselves or that the statisticians may not have fully picked up food price inflation effects. The details are here.