Retail sales rise 3% in February - 13 April

From today's irish times:
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Hard to know whether to take a glass half full or empty view of this.
On one hand it's a 3% increase year on year which on the face of it is good.
However if you take out car sales (30% growth! probably helped by the scrappage scheme) we actually have a 3% drop, which is worrying. Also I think Feb this year would have been boosted a little by the cold spell in Jan which would have deferred some spending, as people couldn't get out and about.

To me it looks like the economy is still slowing down

While there is no doubt that the continued recovery in car sales are providing most of the kickstart seen in the retail figures, I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the positive elements.

If we look at retail sales exlcuding motor trades it is true that there is still an annual drop in sales by both value (-7.4%) and volume (-3.1%). However that is comparing now to what was happening 12 months ago.

If we make much more immediate comparisons, the monthly changes in retail sales for January and February of this year have all been positive. Exclusing motor trades Value has risen 1.3% and 0.1% in the first two months of the year with Volume rising by 0.4% and 1.3%. The annual changes, although still negative, are beginning to unwind.

Rossa White in Davy will use this tendency to focus on annual changes as further evidence to argue [broken link removed].