UK Retail Sales plunge
|Retail Sales plunged 1.5% in December
This compares with November’s unexpectedly large 1.1% month-on-month increase and was well below the -0.8% consensus expectation.
Sterling fell sharply on the news.
Earlier this morning the British pound came within one cent of 1.4000 to trade at its highest level since the UK’s vote to leave the EU in June 2016. Sterling has also made gains versus the euro. However, the upside has been limited given the single currency’s recent strength. Overall, the pound’s rally has far more to do with the ongoing decline of the dollar. The downtrend in the greenback looks set to continue now that the EURUSD has broken above significant technical resistance around 1.2100 while the Dollar Index is making fresh three-year lows.
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