Canadian retail spending ticked lower in December – RBC

<p>Retail spending from Canadian consumers at the country's largest bank suggests a slight decrease in spending, with hardly any improvement year-over-year.</p><p>"Purchases of physical merchandise (excluding motor vehicles) ticked lower in December," RBC said in its month spending tracker, which is based on its cardholder data.</p><p>Spending on gifts was up just over 4% this year in Nov/Dec in nominal terms, just ahead of the 3% y/y inflation rate. However for December alone, both discretionary goods and services spending ended on a softer note.</p><blockquote>Canadians continue to feel the squeeze of higher interest rates, but softer broader economic growth data (per-person GDP is on track to decline for a 6th consecutive quarter in Q4 2023) is bringing the Bank of Canada closer to a potential pivot to interest rate cuts, likely in the middle of the year in our own forecast.</blockquote><p>Read the <a href="https://thoughtleadership.rbc.com/rbc-consumer-spending-tracker/?nocache" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">full report</a></p>

This article was written by Adam Button at www.forexlive.com.