🇬🇧Cable FX Macro Weekly Note: U.K. April Retail Sales

**As seen in Risk In The Week report 05/19/23, subscribe at cablefxm.co.uk/reports

U.K. March retail sales contracted by 0.9% M/m vs the prior 1.2%, the figure came to miss estimates of a 0.5% increase. Retail sales excluding auto fuel fell by 1.0% as food store sales declined by 0.7%, total non-food store sales dipped the most since December at -1.3% M/m. Electronic store sales declined by 0.8% M/m, however, the share of U.K. internet sales increased to 25.5% from the prior 25.1%. Looking at the figures, a broad softness in the data is a sign that inflation is feeding through consumer demand. Analysts at ING said that the worst is behind us as real wage pressures ease and consumer confidence improves, they expect a rebound from the depressed spending seen in March. ING's own forecast sees retail sales rising by 0.6% M/m and falling by 2.5% Y/y in April, vs the consensus of 0.3% and -2.7%, respectively.