{"id":19209,"date":"2023-04-21T15:27:32","date_gmt":"2023-04-21T15:27:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/canada-feb-retail-sales\/"},"modified":"2023-04-21T15:28:22","modified_gmt":"2023-04-21T15:28:22","slug":"canada-retail-sales-seen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/canada-retail-sales-seen\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada retail sales seen slumping in March"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>OTTAWA (Reuters) -Canadian retail sales dipped by 0.2% in February from January, and are expected to drop another 1.4% in March, according to data from Statistics Canada on Friday, indicating high interest rates may be starting to dent consumer spending.<\/p>\n<p>February&#8217;s decline, smaller than analysts&#8217; forecast of a 0.6% fall, was led by lower sales at gasoline stations and fuel vendors as well as and general merchandise retailers, Statscan said. By volume, retail sales decreased 0.7%.<\/p>\n<p>The estimated 1.4% retails sales decline in March, which could change when data is released next month, would be the biggest drop in 8 months.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The flash estimate suggests that consumers might be starting to feel the pinch from higher interest rates,&#8221; Desjardins economist Tiago Figueiredo said in a note.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This reinforces the Bank of Canada&#8217;s (BoC) view that the Canadian economy is set to decelerate and shouldn\u2019t require any further rate increases,&#8221; Figueiredo said.<\/p>\n<p>The BoC raised rates at a record pace over the past year to cool inflation, and then became the first major central bank to pause monetary tightening. It has left its key policy rate at a 15-year high of 4.50% at its last two policy-setting meetings to let the effects of the hikes sink in.<\/p>\n<p>In February, sales decreased in four of nine subsectors, representing 48% of retail trade. <\/p>\n<p> (Reporting by Ismail Shakil and Dale Smith in OttawaEditing by Frances Kerry)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/canada-retail-sales-seen\/file-photo-file-photo-a-grocery-store-in-toronto-canada\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportBusinessNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3K0GM-VIEWIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3K0GM-VIEWIMAGE\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>OTTAWA (Reuters) -Canadian retail sales dipped by 0.2% in February from January, and are expected to drop another 1.4% in March, according to data from Statistics Canada on Friday, indicating high interest rates may be starting to dent consumer spending. February&#8217;s decline, smaller than analysts&#8217; forecast of a 0.6% fall, was led by lower sales [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":19210,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1213],"tags":[1223],"class_list":["post-19209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-business","tag-updated"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportBusinessNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3K0GM-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19209"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19420,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19209\/revisions\/19420"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}