But, but, but… it was Christmas!!

Canadian retail sales have come out and they are shockingly low – even after bad weather and higher rates on big ticket items had kept surveys particularly low for December.

The headline print was -0.8% MoM (expectations were for no change)

Worse still, sales ex autos plunged 1.8% MoM (against expectations of a 0.3% gain) – the biggest drop since Jan 2015…

As Citi notes, these numbers, while often volatile, were not expected to be a big mover, but the extent of the miss has triggered some activity in USDCAD, which has jumped up to 1.2736 already and may have more to run.

Loonie is at its weakest vs the dollar since 12/21…