CBI distributive trades survey plummets in January

Date: Thursday 26 Jan 2012

The Confederation of British Industry’s (CBI) distributive trades survey's balance for retailers’ reported sales volumes plunged to -22 in January from +9 the month before, reaching their lowest level since March 2009.

The consensus estimate for analysts was -6.

That is the first indication of how retailers are faring this year following a lacklustre end to 2011, as according to the trade body the data covers the first two weeks of January.

Retailers reported sales were disappointing for the time of year (-20) and orders were also down (-14), with firms expecting levels to fall again next month (-23).

Retail sales fell in the year to January, after modest growth last month and sales were considered poor for the time of the year, the CBI said.

Ian McCafferty, the organization’s chief economic adviser, added that, “shoppers have reined in spending across the board at the start of the new year, after taking advantage of early discounting last month, which boosted pre-Christmas sales. Consumers are still holding off, particularly from buying big-ticket items, like washing machines and fridges."

For their part after the release economists at Barclays Capital are indicating that, "while a correction in the CBI retail sales balance was expected after it increased sharply in December, the degree of the fall was significantly sharper than anticipated. Nevertheless, we would caution against taking the CBI reading at face value as this is a very volatile series and its relationship with the official data has weakened during the past couple of years."

The worst performance was seen in hardware & DIY (-80), along with durable household goods (-100).

AB

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