Irish retail sales have surprised on the positive side, posting a 0.3% increase
yoy for sales ex-motors in April 2010. Sounds impressive, especially considering this was the first
yoy increase since March 2008, or over some 25 months now. But hold on to that thought of a recovery signal. Check out the charts:
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtHXxwWZD9Ius5tyngLNomMTex8LwNbVz99NhORxt5OJs6_HmG5kmUALB6jcFQBUD-v9YLI2HUoFn8VjwVkgqlT7K9rAJDzMdBofSVSftD1HsXMTMx6TNZUlw5OqWPqcRL3D_F4GKuETeh/s280/Screen+shot+2010-06-11+at+11.45.27.png)
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVMoRhMUzHnEywMR68jr9hZf-shHeDw1j-Z4Lbslq_cyIJ0TYAuBdoi7KPNzcHa0hdZ_TtJic_dy440rmOjU2pU7RvCA0zIVG5JKupDYYRJYv8el0YWCELPLTsX1_v-vbQul33xmOc7E39/s280/Screen+shot+2010-06-11+at+11.45.36.png)
Things are still very much up in the air as to whether retail sales are actually on a mend or not. The figures above plot seasonally adjusted series ex-motors. More importantly, sales in the categories that are correlated with overall household investment activities - household equipment (down 3.1% in value mom, and down 1.2% in volume mom), electrical goods (-3.2% in value mom and 2.3% in volume mom) and Furniture & Lighting (down 5% in value and 6.2% in volume) - all signal no growth in the core leading indicator of a recovery - improved domestic investment. Only Hardware, Paint & Glass category related to investment showed increases of 2% and 4.2% in value and volume in mom terms.
Interestingly, Ireland bucked the EU-wide trend in April:
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