Canada retail sales drop unexpectedly in two decades

Bloomberg

Canadian retailers ended their strongest year in two decades on a down note, with a disappointing Christmas shopping season pulling back sales in December.
Receipts fell 0.8 percent to
C$49.6 billion in January of 2017, Statistics Canada reported. It was the biggest monthly decline since March 2016. Economists were expecting no change during the month.
For all of 2017, sales were up
6.7 percent, the biggest increase since 1997. The year was largely a tale of two halves for retailers with a surge in the first six months.
The retail slowdown paralleled growth overall, given consumers have been the main driver of Canada’s economy in recent quarters. The retail release is the last major piece of output data ahead of fourth quarter gross domestic product numbers due March 2.
Economists have been projecting annualized growth in the final quarter of 2017 of about 2 percent, which would be a slight increase from 1.7 percent in the third quarter. The Bank of Canada has been projecting growth of 2.5 percent in the fourth quarter.
The retail report is also the third release over the past two weeks that showed unexpected weakness in activity in December. There have been unexpected declines in wholesale sales and manufacturing shipments.