British Retailers Face Pressure As Sales Drop To Lowest In 16 Years – City Index Spread Betting News

A 1.9 per cent decline was experienced by UK retail sales values between March 2010 and the same month this year.

The British Retail Consortium (BRC) and KPMG Retail Sales Monitor for March revealed that such a drop is the biggest seen since 1995, when the figures first started to be collected.

Like-for-like sales retreated by 3.5 per cent, with non-food sales tumbling even more than their food counterparts.

While a 7.5 per cent sales rally was noted for internet, telephone and mail-order sales, this growth is the weakest since October 2008, the survey explained.

Commenting on the results, BRC director-general Stephen Robertson said: "Mounting fuel and utility costs, falling house prices, higher VAT and the prospect of more tax rises and job losses left people unwilling to spend unless they really had to."

On the FTSE 100 this morning (April 13th), Burberry was trading down by 0.88 per cent as of 08:40 BST, although other retailers received a share prices boost.

Tesco had risen by 1.60 per cent, Sainsbury saw a 0.59 per cent hike and Next stormed up the stock index by almost one per cent.

To read the latest spread betting market updates from City Index, visit: http://www.cityindex.co.uk/market-analysis/financial-news.aspx

Spread betting and CFD trading are leveraged products which can result in losses greater than your initial deposit. Ensure you fully understand the risks.

By: Paul Cassidy

Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com

About City Index: Today more and more individual traders are discovering the benefits of derivatives, and many of them are discovering them through a City Index trading platform. As a group, we transact in excess of 1.5 million trades every month for individuals in over 50 countries worldwide. We provide access to a wide range of instruments including margined foreign exchange, CFDs and, in the UK, spread betting.