Retail sales fell in September and early indications suggest a flat reading for October, ahead of the key holiday shopping season.<\/p>\n
Statistics Canada said Friday retail sales were down 0.7 per cent to $69.8 billion in September as sales of new cars fell.<\/p>\n
TD Bank economist Maria Solovieva said retail sales are heading into the holiday season on shaky footing.<\/p>\n
\u201cSeptember recorded a renewed decline, and early signals point to a flat reading in October,\u201d Solovieva wrote in a note to clients.<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite recent volatility, the underlying trend is weaker real spending with major categories now in outright contraction.\u201d<\/p>\n
Statistics Canada reported retail sales in September fell in six of the nine subsectors it tracks.<\/p>\n
Sales for motor vehicle and parts dealers fell 2.9 per cent, weighed down by a 3.6 per cent decline at new car dealers. User car dealers saw a gain of 0.5 per cent, while other motor vehicle dealers dropped 1.6 per cent and automotive parts, accessories and tire retailers fell 0.4 per cent.<\/p>\n
Core retail sales \u2014 which exclude gasoline stations and fuel vendors, along with motor vehicle and parts dealers \u2014 were relatively unchanged in September.<\/p>\n
Sales at building material and garden equipment and supplies dealers fell two per cent, while general merchandise retailers saw a 0.5 per cent decline.<\/p>\n
Food and beverage retailers gained 0.8 per cent, helped by a 3.4 per cent increase at beer, wine and liquor retailers and a 0.3 per cent rise at supermarkets and other grocery retailers.<\/p>\n
In volume terms, overall retail sales dropped 0.8 per cent in September.<\/p>\n
The retail sales report comes ahead of the Bank of Canada\u2019s next interest rate decision set for Dec. 10.<\/p>\n
The central bank cut its policy interest rate in October to 2.25 per cent as members of its governing council felt a weak economy hampered by U.S. tariffs was expected to keep inflation around its two per cent target for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Retail sales fell in September and early indications suggest a flat reading for October, ahead of the key…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299006,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,45,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-299005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}