Euro-Region Retail Sales Dropped More Than Forecast in September
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European retail sales declined more than economists forecast in September as the region’s worsening sovereign-debt crisis prompted households from Ireland to France and Spain to cut spending.
Sales in the 17-nation euro region decreased 0.7 percent from August, when they rose 0.1 percent, the European Union’s statistics office in Luxembourg said today. That’s the biggest decline since May. Economists had forecast a September drop of 0.1 percent, the median of 24 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey showed. Sales slumped 1.5 percent from a year earlier.