The 0.3% drop in retail sales in September confirms a continued weak consumption environment for goods. The outlook for retail is slowly improving, but the turning point is hard to determine. For GDP, this adds to our view of slightly negative growth for the fourth quarter and first quarter of next year. Retail contributed negatively to 3Q GDP – which was down by -0.1% - with three months of declining trade volumes. This confirms a trend ongoing since late 2021, which is in part induced by weaker overall demand but also to a degree by overspending on goods in 2020 and early 2021. This effect has largely been ... (full story)