Indicators
Canada Retail Sales Drop 0.4% in Sharp Spending Pullback
Shoppers walk through slush during a winter storm in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Photographer: Christinne Muschi/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Canadian consumers sharply pulled back their spending in January after stronger-than-expected retail purchases at the end of last year.
Receipts for retailers fell 0.4%, the biggest decline since March 2023, according to an advance estimate from Statistics Canada released Thursday. That followed a 0.9% jump in December, which beat the median estimate of 0.8% gain in a Bloomberg survey. In volume terms, retail sales rose 0.8% that month.