U.K. Distributive Trade- A Still-Weak February

Distributive trades retailing Sales- The U.K. distributive trades survey for retailing in February produced another sequence of weak results. Sales compared to a year ago improved incrementally in February; orders compared to a year ago improved to a -38 reading compared to -43 in January. Each of these is an improvement but it's a small improvement and correspond to a weak overall reading. Sales for the time of year weakened further, however, to -34 in February from -24 in January. The percentile standings for these metrics put sales compared to a year ago at a 12.7 percentile standing, orders compared to a year ago with a 7.4 percentile standing, and sales for the time of year at a 9.5 percentile standing. All of these are extremely weak readings regardless of whether they get slightly better or worse month-to-month.

Expectations- The expectations for March are still very weak in terms of ranking and generally weakened month-to-month. Sales expectations compared to a year ago in March weakened to -30 compared to -26 in February; orders for the time of year weakened to -47, a sharp drop, from -25 in February; sales for the time of year improved slightly to -27 from -31 in February. The rankings on these three metrics are displayed on the table - they all stand below their 10th percentile.

Distributive trades wholesaling Sales- The distributive trade readings for wholesaling are slightly more optimistic than for retailing. The rankings are still weak; while numerically stronger than for retail sales, they are not really demonstrably stronger, at least, in economic terms month-to-month distributive trades show sales compared to a year ago at -19 in February, an improvement from -30 in January. Orders for the year ago improved to -30 in February from -33 in January while sales for the time of year improved to -29 a small improvement from -31 in January. The percentile standings for these readings are in their lower 16th percentile or lower.

Expectations- Moving to expected sales for wholesaling, the March numbers improved to -14 compared to a year ago, that matched up to -28 in February. Order expectations compared to a year ago improved to -21 in March relative to -30 in February. Sales for the time of year logged -23 reading, a sharp improvement from -35 in February. The rank standings for these have sales and orders compared to a year ago at or close to their 20th percentile while sales for the time of year have a standing below their 10th percentile. These are stronger readings than for expectations for retailing; however, they're still extremely weak. The 20th percentile is really not significantly better in economic terms than being in the 10th percentile.

Summing up For all the distributive trades, survey results remain weak with mixed performance month-to-month in the retailing and wholesaling sectors. The U.K. economy continues to struggle and the survey this month doesn't do anything to increase confidence about economic performance.