Customers at the entrance of the Target store in East York, Ont., on Aug. 5, 2014.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
Canadian retail sales surged 1.1 per cent in June, a gain that exceeded all economist forecasts and extended the current streak of advances to six months.
Sales increased 1.1 per cent to $42.6-billion, Statistics Canada said Friday in Ottawa. Economists forecast a 0.3-per-cent gain, according to the median estimate of 18 responses in a Bloomberg News survey, with the highest forecast at 0.7 per cent.
Purchases excluding the motor vehicle and parts category rose 1.5 per cent, while economists had forecast a 0.3-per-cent rise.
Sales advanced in eight of 11 categories marking 71 per cent of total sales. May's retail sales increase was revised to 0.9 per cent from an earlier estimate of 0.7 per cent.
The volume of sales, which strips out the impact of price changes, rose 0.6 per cent in June.