UK Retail Sales decline 2.7% MoM in May vs. -0.5% expected

Dhwani Mehta FXStreet

The United Kingdom (UK) Retail Sales declined 2.7% month-over-month (MoM) in May after climbing 1.3% in April (revised from 1.2%), the latest data published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed Friday.

Markets expected a 0.5% drop in the reported month.

The core Retail Sales, stripping the auto motor fuel sales, fell 2.8% MoM, as against the previous revised growth of 1.4% and the estimated -0.5% print.

The annual Retail Sales in the UK dropped by 1.3% in May versus April’s 5%, while the core Retail Sales also decreased by 1.3% in the same month versus a 5.2% previous revision.

Both readings surpassed the market expectations.

Market reaction to UK Retail Sales report

GBP/USD pares gains in an immediate reaction to the downbeat UK data, still adding 0.18% on the day at 1.3483, as of writing.

British Pound PRICE Today

The table below shows the percentage change of British Pound (GBP) against listed major currencies today. British Pound was the strongest against the Japanese Yen.

	USD	EUR	GBP	JPY	CAD	AUD	NZD	CHF
USD		-0.23%	-0.07%	-0.03%	-0.10%	-0.31%	-0.20%	-0.06%
EUR	0.23%		0.13%	0.20%	0.13%	0.09%	0.05%	0.19%
GBP	0.07%	-0.13%		0.16%	0.00%	-0.04%	-0.09%	0.06%
JPY	0.03%	-0.20%	-0.16%		-0.02%	-0.29%	-0.31%	-0.08%
CAD	0.10%	-0.13%	-0.01%	0.02%		-0.17%	-0.33%	0.05%
AUD	0.31%	-0.09%	0.04%	0.29%	0.17%		0.23%	0.10%
NZD	0.20%	-0.05%	0.09%	0.31%	0.33%	-0.23%		0.14%
CHF	0.06%	-0.19%	-0.06%	0.08%	-0.05%	-0.10%	-0.14%

The heat map shows percentage changes of major currencies against each other. The base currency is picked from the left column, while the quote currency is picked from the top row. For example, if you pick the British Pound from the left column and move along the horizontal line to the US Dollar, the percentage change displayed in the box will represent GBP (base)/USD (quote).

Author

Dhwani Mehta

FXStreet

Residing in Mumbai (India), Dhwani is a Senior Analyst and Manager of the Asian session at FXStreet. She has over 10 years of experience in analyzing and covering the global financial markets, with specialization in Forex and commodities markets.

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