Advanced retail sales of Switzerland increased by the slowest rate in eight months indicating that losses in equity markets are lowering the confidence of consumers as they see their wealth diminish. The number missed economist expectations of a slowdown to 4.9 percent, and was sharply lower than 7.2 percent reading during the previous month. Increased concerns of liquidity crunch have significantly changed the expectations of rate hike of central banks of Europe and the probability of two rate hikes by the Swiss National Bank has significantly declined.
[B]Advanced Retail Sales:
[/B]Actual: 1.0%
Consensus: 4.9%
Prior: 7.2%