Australia retail sales rose 0.0% mom in October, much worse than expectation of 0.3% mom. There were falls for clothing, footwear and personal accessory retailing (-0.8%), department stores (-0.8%) and household goods (-0.2%). They were were offset by rises in cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services (0.4%) and food retailing (0.1%). Other retailing was relatively unchanged (0.0%).
Across the states, Victoria (-0.4%), New South Wales (-0.2%), and South Australia (-0.5%) fell, while Queensland (0.4%), Tasmania (1.4%), the Northern Territory (2.3%), Western Australia (0.2%), and the Australian Capital Territory (0.3 per cent) rose in seasonally adjusted terms in October 2019.
Also in October, exports of goods and services dropped AUD -2.2B to AUD 40.8B. Imports rose AUD 0.1B to AUD 36.2B. Trade surplus narrowed to AUD 4.5B, below expectation of AUD 6.5B.
