2014.04.2416:26:00UTC+00Uk Retail Sales Volumes may have held Broadly steady in March

Quotes from Capital Economics:

- UK March's official retail sales figures (09.30 GMT) will probably indicate that the consumer recovery remained strong at the end of Q1. The volume of retail sales rose by a monthly 1.7% in February, and was 3.7% higher than the same month a year ago.

- Admittedly, survey data have pointed to a weakening in March, due to the late timing of Easter this year. However, the ONS adjusts for these timing effects and so the official measure of retail sales should be unaffected by such a distortion. Given such a strong rise in February, some fall back may be expected. But, the strength of the recent recovery in employment suggests that sales probably held up well last month.

- As a result, we think that retail sales volumes may have held broadly steady in March. This would leave them 1% higher in Q1 overall than in Q4.