UK retail sales fell in June 0.9% versus an expected drop of 0.6% as shoppers held back in the wake of the vote to leave the EU.
Despite the drop from a month earlier, UK retail sales are 3.9% up from June last year. However, this also missed expectation and was 0.9% lower than expected and represents a 1.3% reduction in growth rates from last month’s measures. Retail sales including fuel increased at a rate of 4.3% to last year. This figure is 0.7% lower than expected and 1.4% lower than last month’s figure.
The figures are representative of pre-Brexit vote hesitation in the behaviour of UK consumers. Experts fear that post-Brexit economic uncertainty will further depress rates in next month’s data.
Since the release of the UK retail data, the FX market has responded with sterling falling against the green back. The USD/GBP rate hit a low of 1.3154 and has since settled around the 1.32 mark.