Investing.com – Retail sales in the U.K. posted a much larger increase than expected last month, official data showed on Thursday.
In a report, U.K. Office for National Statistics said that retail sales rose 1.3% in April, compared to the prior 0.5% decline whose figure was revised from the original 1.3% decrease.
Analysts had expected retail sales to rise 0.5% last month.
Year-on-year, retail sales increased 4.3%, compared to March’s 3.0% gain which was revised from the initial reading of a 2.7% gain.
Consensus had forecast a 2.5% rise.
Core retail sales, which exclude automobile sales, rose 1.5% on the month, compared to the prior 0.7% drop in March whose figure was revised from an initial 1.6% decline.
In an immediate reaction, the pound strengthened. GBP/USD traded at 1.4657 from around 1.4626 ahead of the release of the data, while EUR/GBP was at 0.7654 from 0.7670 earlier.
Meanwhile, European stock markets traded lower. London’s FTSE 100 fell 1.21%, the Euro Stoxx 50 lost 0.80%, France's CAC 40 traded down 0.51%, while Germany's DAX shed 1.13%.
Analysts had expected core retail sales to rise 0.6% last month.
Year-on-year, core retail sales rose 4.2% in April, compared to the previous month’s 2.6% increase (revised from a 1.8% gain) and compared to the consensus forecast for a 1.9% advance.