Canada Factory Sales Jump 1.6% in August

Canadian manufacturing sales rebounded in August with a sharp gain, defying market expectations for a third-straight monthly decline, on strong auto demand and higher energy prices.

Factory sales rose 1.6% in August on a seasonally adjusted basis to 53.53 billion Canadian dollars ($42.66 billion) from July, Statistics Canada said Wednesday. The result blew past expectations among traders for a 0.3% decrease in August sales, according to economists at Royal Bank of Canada, and retraces some of the previous month's drop of 2.6%. The advance in August also represents the strongest one-month gain in factory sales since December of last year.

On a volume, or price-adjusted basis, manufacturing sales rose 1.2%.

The manufacturing report marks a welcome result, following two straight months of sales decreases and a string of weak export data. A closely-watched Bank of Canada survey for firms indicated this week the sales outlook "remained firmly positive," with overall results pointing to a "healthy business sentiment." Indeed, Wednesday's data indicated new orders rose 4.4% in August, to C$53.55 billion, or the biggest month-over-month increase in 16 months.

Write to Paul Vieira at paul.vieira@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 18, 2017 08:45 ET (12:45 GMT)