UK retail sales to manage only modest, if any, growth

The path of sales has been heavily distorted by the Black Friday sales campaign which boosted sales in November by 1.6% mom followed by dips of 0.1% in December and 0.7% in January. 

Societe Generale says given the size of the surge in November they would have expected to have seen even greater weakness in the following two months than actually occurred. 

The BRC survey points to some growth in February but the CBI Distributive Trades survey reported a veritable collapse in sales. 

"We predict very weak growth of only 0.1% mom with most of the risk being to the downside. Sales could easily have fallen", continued Societe Generale.