Investing.com – Retail sales in the U.K. posted a much larger decline than expected last month, official data showed on Thursday.
In a report, U.K. Office for National Statistics said that retail sales fell 1.3% in March, compared to the prior 0.5% drop whose figure was revised from the original 0.4% decrease.
Analysts had expected retail sales to slip 0.1% last month.
Year-on-year, retail sales increased 2.7%, compared to February’s 3.6% gain which was revised from the initial reading of a 3.8% gain.
Consensus had forecast a 4.4% rise.
Core retail sales, which exclude automobile sales, fell 1.6% on the month, compared to the prior 0.3% drop in February whose figure was revised from an initial 0.2% decline.
Analysts had expected core retail sales to fall 0.4% last month.
Year-on-year, core retail sales rose 1.8% in March, compared to the previous month’s 3.7% increase (revised from a 4.1% gain) and compared to the consensus forecast for a 3.7% advance.
In an immediate reaction, the pound was pushed down by the data. GBP/USD traded at 1.4314 from around 1.4325 ahead of the release of the data, while EUR/GBP was at 0.7889 from 0.7882 earlier.
Meanwhile, European stock markets traded mixed. London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.30%, the Euro Stoxx 50 gained 0.13%, France's CAC 40 inched down 0.07%, while Germany's DAX advanced 0.20%.