UK Retail Sales - small deviation and conflict

Not really much to report on this UK Retail Sales number for this Nov 18th 2010. This can be and excellent report to trade, but when there is not a decent deviation from the expected number, it just is not worth getting involved in. Pretty obviously this number reports how much stuff people purchased, and people purchasing and consuming is good for the economy. There are 4 numbers that come out with this report but generally the headline m/m figure is the one to watch, but obviously to get a high probability trade signal it is best that all 4 numbers deviate in the same direction. There was a small deviation of +0.1 on both the headline and core month-on-month numbers, however there was a conflict with the year-on-year figures which both deviated negatively from expectations, including a larger -0.3 deviation on the y/y core number. This is another reason for choosing sufficient deviations to trade. The larger the deviation of one piece of data the more likely the rest are to deviate in the same direction. Regardless none of the deviations were enough for us to get any trade opportunities, it is a shame as this report can be good to trade, but the appropriate deviations are chosen for a reason, to keep us safe and out of a market that is not likely to move in the direction we anticipate. There was also some Public Finances data that was released at the same time, but this data is not as important as the Retail Sales numbers. Here is the data:

(UK) OCT RETAIL SALES EX AUTO FUEL M/M: 0.3% V 0.2%E; Y/Y: 1.2% V 1.5%E
- Prior MoM revised lower from 0.0% to -0.3%
- Prior YoY revised lower from 1.8% to 1.3%

(UK) OCT RETAIL SALES WITH AUTO FUEL M/M: 0.5% V 0.4%E; Y/Y: -0.1% V 0.0%E
- Prior MoM revised lower from -0.2% to -0.5%
- Prior YoY revised lower from 0.5% to 0.0%

(UK) OCT PUBLIC FINANCES (PSNCR): £2.4B V £6.0BE; PUBLIC SECTOR NET BORROWING: £9.8B V £8.9BE
- PSNB ex Interventions: £10.3B v £9.6Be

- Prior Net Borrowing revised lower from £15.6B to £14.4B
- Prior PSNB ex Interventions revised lower from £16.2 to £15.0B

Included is a chart of the resulting price action. Basically a whipsaw type of movement can be seen. This is definately something to stay away from and it is this type of situation which can make straddling these reports dangerous.