Australian December retail sales -2.7% m/m (expected -0.9%)

<p> I mentioned earlier in the preview that </p><ul><li>There is some distrust of the figures at this time of year, the relatively new Black Friday sales events in Australia play havoc with seasonal adjustments for the months around it. The Australian Bureau of Statistics is still coming to grips with the new sales event.</li></ul><p>Rsults:</p><ul><li>-2.7% m/m (expected -0.9%, prior +2.0%), this is the biggest m/m fall since August 2020
</li><li>+0.8% y/y, slowest rise since August 2021</li></ul><p>Given the substantial 2.7% drop on the month, 3 times the -0.9% expected, there may well be some of this unknown seasonal adjustment playing into the data. Don't ask me, if the collective genius of the Australian Bureau of Statistics and all the PhDs on deck there can't figure it out a spot monkey won't be able to. If you do need answers I am sure YouTube and the internet will know for sure though (rolls eyes).</p><p>I will say that the November retail sales figure hit the highest spend hever recorded, so some pullback shouldn't surprise.</p><p>ABS commentary:</p><ul><li> "The large fall in retail turnover in December was caused by a fall in discretionary spending. Consumers brought forward some of their usual December spending to November to take advantage of Black Friday sales.
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“This shift in spending from December to November reflects the growing popularity of Black Friday sales and the impact of cost-of-living pressures, with consumers seeking out bargains and taking advantage of discounts in November.
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“While there was a large seasonally adjusted fall in December, retail turnover rose 0.1 per cent in trend terms. This shows that underlying retail spending remains subdued when we look through the volatile movements over recent months in the lead up to Christmas."</li></ul><p>AUD/USD is not bothered by the data it seems, ticks a little higher to its high for the session circa 0.6617 or so</p>

This article was written by Eamonn Sheridan at www.forexlive.com.