Store shelves got lots of visits during November in Canada, and kept their streak going, even though the pace growth cooled over the month before.
Statistics Canada reported Tuesday that retail sales improved 0.3% the month before last, following a jump of 0.9% in October. While the pace of growth slowed down, expectations for the November increase were for a slightly more moderate 0.2% gain.
The nation’s number crunchers added that, eliminating the impact of price changes, the volume of retail sales were unexpectedly strong, rising 0.5% in the month and indicating some price discounting by retailers in November. The gain matched a similar-sized increase in October.
Excluding both the motor vehicle and service station component, sales rose 0.2% following a 0.4% gain in October (originally reported as up 0.5%). This reflected solid gains in sporting goods (which traveled higher by 2.9%) and clothing stores (0.9%) being partially offset by declines in furniture stores (0.8%) and electronic and appliance stores (0.3%).
A report on these findings from Royal Bank Economics showed that the rise in November retail sales volumes followed indications of strengthening activity in both manufacturing and exports in the month.
"These increases," RBC continued, "are expected to more than offset a drop in November wholesale trade and are projected to contribute to fourth quarter GDP growth rising an annualized 2.0%. However, this rate of growth is unlikely to put sustained downward pressure on the unemployment rate.
"To try and promote even stronger growth in the face of financial market pressures,” the country’s biggest bank concluded, “related to concerns about European sovereign debt, the Bank of Canada is expected to keep monetary conditions highly accommodative with the overnight rate being held at 1.00% until the fourth quarter of this year."
