Canadian Retail Sales rise 0.5% in June. CAD mixed in forex trading. | CountingPips Forex Blog

August 20, 2008 - Forex Economic News

Canadian Retail Sales rise 0.5% in June. CAD mixed in forex trading.

Canadian Retail Sales increased in June according to the monthly report released by Statistics Canada today. Retail sales increased by 0.5 percent to C$36.0 billion in the month following a revised increase of 0.3 percent in May. The rise in Retail sales matched economic forecasts predicting the 0.5 percent rise and boosted the annual rate of increase to 4.0 percent over CAD Forex News June 2007. Providing a boost to the retail sales numbers was an increase in gasoline station sales which rose by 4.2 percent in July and has increased by 23.6 percent on an annual basis.

Clothing and Accessories stores and beer, wine and liguor stores also provided positive gains for the month with increases of 2.5 percent and 1.8 percent, respectively. New car dealers showed the largest sales decrease for the month with a decline of 3.1 percent. Core retail sales or sales minus automobiles increased in June by 1.4 percent which surpassed market forecasts predicting a 0.6 percent increase. Core retail sales in May showed a revised increase of 0.6 percent.

A separate report from Statistics Canada showed that the Leading Indicators index held steady in July from June. The Leading Indicator Index, which measures future economic activity, was unchanged for July but showed increases in seven out of ten sectors that make up the leading indicator index with manufacturing new orders leading the way with a 1.3 percent gain for the month. The housing index was the highest negative contributor to the index with a decrease of 2.9 percent for the month. The no change in the July index were below market forecasts which were expecting a 0.1 percent increase in the leading indicators for the month.

The Canadian dollar has been mixed today in the forex markets after a gain against the U.S. dollar yesterday. Today, the Canadian dollar also known as the "loonie" is virtually unchanged verses the U.S. dollar from today's opening exchange rate of 1.0611 to trading at 1.0616 this afternoon. The loonie has shown a small decline verses the euro from the day's open to trading at 1.5673 while the CAD/JPY was trading at 103.26 today in U.S. session trading action.

USD/CAD Chart - The U.S. dollar this month has broken through a multi-year downward sloping trendline. Could a longterm reversal be taking place which could see a resurgent USD verses the CAD? (Monthly Chart)

Forex Chart

tags: retail sales, leading indicators, canadian dollar, forex market

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