Australian Investment Blog

The polarisation of economies is reflected perfectly by the UK Retailers

The retailing index slipped to its lowest level for more than 2 years in the UK, as concerns around the health of Europe continues. The pressure keeps mounting for the central bank with economic surveys painting a gloomy outlook for growth and September’s first reading of eurozone inflation coming in at a five-year low of 0.3%. However, as investors, we should stand back and look at the bigger picture. Everything was looking awful in the US 5 years ago and now we have a thriving healthy economy that everyone wants to buy. Our retail sector has had very mixed results recently, with unfortunately Myer (a stock I hold) performing badly, along with JB HI-FI while Harvey Norman has rallied nicely. Today, the Retail Sales data will show us if Australians have started to open their wallets or remain cautious. Overall, the retail index is correcting back to the areas that I have been looking to buy, but no clear signals have yet been generated.