{"id":440693,"date":"2026-10-23T14:40:23","date_gmt":"2026-10-23T07:40:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/market-news\/uk-retail-sales-fall-more-than-expected-in-september-complicating-boe-rate-hike-outlook-440693\/"},"modified":"2026-10-23T14:40:23","modified_gmt":"2026-10-23T07:40:23","slug":"uk-retail-sales-fall-more-than-expected-in-september-complicating-boe-rate-hike-outlook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/market-news\/uk-retail-sales-fall-more-than-expected-in-september-complicating-boe-rate-hike-outlook-440693\/","title":{"rendered":"UK retail sales fall more than expected in September, complicating BOE rate hike outlook"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<ul>\n<li>UK September retail sales -0.4% vs -0.1% m\/m expected<\/li>\n<li>Prior +0.5; revised to +0.7%<\/li>\n<li>UK September retail sales +0.8% vs +1.0% y\/y expected<\/li>\n<li>Prior +2.4%; revised to +2.7%<\/li>\n<li>UK September retail sales (ex autos, fuel) -0.7% vs -0.1% m\/m expected<\/li>\n<li>Prior +0.6%; revised to +0.9%<\/li>\n<li>UK September retail sales (ex autos, fuel) +0.8% vs +1.5% y\/y expected<\/li>\n<li>Prior +2.7%; revised to +2.9%<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"text-align-justify\">UK retail sales disappointed in September, falling by 0.4% on the month and missing expectations of a 0.1% decline. That comes after a stronger revision to the August number, which saw a 0.7% increase. Having said that, the quarterly picture is still holding up reasonably well as retail sales volumes rose by 0.7% in Q3 compared with the previous quarter.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"text-align-justify\">Looking at the details, the weakness was fairly broad. Supermarket sales declined after gains in the previous two months, while non-food store sales volumes fell by 0.4%. Clothing retailers also struggled, with the unusually warm September weather weighing on demand for autumn and winter collections.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"text-align-justify\">However,\u00a0there are also signs that consumers are becoming more cautious with some retailers pointing to lower footfall and customers cutting back on spending.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"text-align-justify\">Coming into the report,\u00a0markets have been pricing in roughly 98% odds of a November rate hike, with December sitting closer to 45%. The numbers today will not do much to derail\u00a0expectations for November, especially after the recent <a href=\"https:\/\/investinglive.com\/news\/uk-september-cpi-inflation-rises-to-3-5-reinforces-boe-november-rate-hike-expectations\/\" rel=\"follow\">inflation figures<\/a>.\u00a0But they certainly make the argument for another move in December less straightforward, with the pricing there being more or less a coin flip at this stage.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"text-align-justify\">The BOE has a tough balancing act to manage at the moment.\u00a0Inflation remains stubborn, while the labour market and now consumer spending are offering less reassurance about the strength of the economy.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"text-align-justify\">So for now,\u00a0November still looks firmly on the table. But beyond that, the retail sales release today gives policymakers another reason to proceed more cautiously.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"text-align-justify\">\n<p>                            This article was written by Justin Low at investinglive.com.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>UK September retail sales -0.4% vs -0.1% m\/m expected Prior +0.5; revised to +0.7% UK September retail sales +0.8% vs +1.0% y\/y expected Prior +2.4%; revised to +2.7% UK September retail sales&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":216,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-440693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-market-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/216"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=440693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440693\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}