UK Dec Retail Sales preview - Nomura

Analysts at Nomura offer a brief preview of what to expect from today’s UK retail sales release due to be reported at 0930GMT.

Key Quotes:

“December is, of course, the most important month of the year for retail sales.

So far the evidence has been patchy - the CBI distributive trades survey (volumes growth) has remained upbeat, and while the BRC measure of growth remains in positive territory it is modest at 0.6% (nominal)/1.2% real (like-for-like).

Visa's expenditure index fell by around 2.5% in December versus a year earlier while John Lewis sales were up to a similar degree.

Measures of footfall were down noticeably. Individual retailers have reported varied success, with some retailers performing better than expected (Next, for example) and some worse (Debenhams).