Euro zone retail sales defied market expectations of a rise and fell sharply in November after small gains in the previous month, underlining the fragility of household demand as unemployment grows.
The European Union's statistics office, Eurostat, said retail sales in the 16 countries using the euro fell 1.2 per cent from October and dropped 4.0 percent year-on-year.
Economists polled by Reuters had on average expected a 0.1 per cent monthly rise and a 1.9 per cent annual fall.
The drop was mainly due to shrinking sales in Germany, the euro zone's biggest economy, where they declined 1.1 per cent on the month. In Spain, the single currency area's fourth-biggest economy, sales were down 1.0 per cent.
Sales also fell in France, Portugal, Slovakia and Finland.
Meanwhile, a separate report found Euro zone economic sentiment improved more than expected in December thanks to increased optimism among industry, services and consumers, while consumer inflation expectations jumped.
A monthly survey by the European Commission showed economic sentiment in the euro zone rose to 91.3 points from 88.8 in November, well above the 90.0 expected by economists in a Reuters poll.
The rise was mainly driven by a three-point improvement in sentiment in industry to -16 points. There were one-point improvements in the services sector to -3, among consumers to -16 and in the retail sector to -10 points.
The survey also showed that while selling-price expectations in industry fell for the second month running to -10 from -9 in November and -8 in October, inflation expectations among consumers jumped to -6 from -11 points.
The Commission's business climate indicator, which points to the phase of the business cycle, improved to -1.22 from -1.53 in November, the highest reading since -0.93 in October 2008.
Reuters