Australian retail sales likely to have dropped slightly in November

Australian retail sales activity has witnessed the pace of growth trending lower in the last three years or so. Australian consumers see elevated levels of household debt as home prices have increased significantly in some markets. This issue has been compounded by the fact that wage growth has been under pressure in recent years, making it difficult for households to free up extra spending money, noted Wells Fargo in a research report.

However, the jobless rate has been trending lower, and the 5.4 percent in November was at a four-year low. In October, retail sales had risen 0.5 percent, the second largest month jump in store sales in 2017. According to consensus expectations, the November retail sales data, which is due to be released this week, is expected to have dropped a bit to 0.4 percent.

At 21:00 GMT the FxWirePro's Hourly Strength Index of Australian Dollar was highly bearish -107.707, while the FxWirePro's Hourly Strength Index of US Dollar was neutral at 32.4032. For more details on FxWirePro's Currency Strength Index, visit http://www.fxwirepro.com/currencyindex

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