European Retail Sales Contract to 7-Month Low, Markit Says
European retail sales contracted in May to the lowest level since October 2010, driven by a “sharp drop” in Italy, Markit Economics said.
A gauge of euro-area retail sales fell to 48.8 from 52.2 in April, London-based Markit Economics said today in a statement. The index is based on a survey of more than 1,000 executives and a reading above 50 indicates month-on-month expansion.
Italian retail sales declined at the fastest pace in 11 months in May, while monthly increases in Germany and France, the euro area’s largest economies, were the weakest in seven and three months, respectively, Markit said.
Data for the first two months of the second quarter “suggest a steep slowdown in growth of consumer spending in the single-currency area,” Trevor Balchin, a senior Markit economist, said in today’s report. “As a result of elevated cost pressures and falling sales, retailers’ gross margins deteriorated to the greatest extent for a year,”
The euro trimmed losses after the data were released, trading at $1.4287 at 10:58 a.m. in Brussels, down 0.2 percent.
Euro-area retail trade declined 1 percent in March from a month earlier, the biggest drop since April 2010, on higher oil prices and government austerity measures, the European Union’s statistics service in Luxembourg said on May 4.
To contact the reporter on this story: Patrick Henry in Brussels at phenry8@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Craig Stirling at cstirling1@bloomberg.net.
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