29/08/2011: Retail Sales and Consumer Confidence: July 2011

In the previous post, we looked at the latest data on retail sales for Ireland for July 2011 (here). Now, let's update the data for retail sales and consumer confidence.

Per ESRI latest data, consumer confidence in Ireland dropped from 56.3 in June 2011 to 55.9 in July, with 3mo moving average down to 57.2 in July from 57.9 in June.
As charts below indicate, Irish retail sales continue to underperform historical trends, but, crucially, are running well below the levels that would be consistent with the consumer confidence readings (both contemporaneous, lagged 1 period and 3mo moving averages):
The above suggests that we are still in - both, structural (consumer confidence and sales lags signals to the left range of the trend) and cyclical (below trend) - weaknesses in terms of retails sales and consumer demand.