Thursday, April 2, 2009

Wall Street Journal watch - Australian edition

From the usually reliable WSJ, a misleading article.
Australia Retail Sales Fall - Gloomy Data Follow Huge Stimulus Plan and Interest Rate Cut APRIL 1, 2009 .... Australian retailers had their worst month in over eight-and-half years in February despite an aggressive interest rate cut and a mammoth fiscal spending package unveiled by the government.

Wow, sounds pretty serious. Tell us more.

Retail sales fell a seasonally adjusted 2% to 18.87 billion Australian dollars (US$13.10 billion) in February from A$19.26 billion in January, the biggest one-month drop since July 2000.

Consider the retail sales figures released by the ABS yesterday. What the WSJ article fails to mention is that retail sales in February remained close to their record high January levels. I doubt that retailers would consider February to be their worst month in almost a decade, as claimed by the WSJ.


1 comment:

  1. You need to replace 'would' with 'should' in the last sentence.

    ReplyDelete