CAD: Retail sales forecasted to decline 0.2% m/m in February - TDS

Research Team at TDS, expects that Canada’s February retail sales likely returned a portion of their brisk January rebound with a forecasted decline of 0.2% m/m.

Key Quotes

“This pullback largely reflects weaker sales at gasoline stations given a sharp drop in the price at the pump in the month. Elsewhere, industry data reporting higher auto sales will provide some additional momentum in the month which corresponds to a 0.5% forecasted decline in the ex-autos measure.

Partial positive offsets will be provided by a stronger month for existing home sales and above seasonal temperatures. Falling consumer prices will also buttress the volumes metric and help provide some marginal support to industry-level real GDP, which itself is also expected to unwind a portion of the strength observed in January.”