Canada Wholesale Trade Down 0.5% on Month in June

Wholesale transactions in Canada declined in June, ending an eight-month streak of gains, due to reduced sales in the food, beverage and tobacco subsector.

Wholesale transactions fell 0.5% on a seasonally adjusted basis in June to 61.4 billion Canadian dollars ($48.8 billion), Statistics Canada said Monday. Market expectations were for a 0.2% decrease, according to economists at Royal Bank of Canada.

In volume terms, June wholesale transactions fell 0.7% from the previous month.

In the second quarter, nominal wholesale sales in Canada rose 2.5%, while constant-dollar sales increased 1.7%.

Wholesale trade is the largest component of Canada's services sector, which in turn accounts for two-thirds of the country's economic output. Wholesalers tend to move merchandise in large quantities to institutional, industrial and retail clients. Markets tend to overlook the wholesale-trade data, even though it has a bigger weight in gross domestic product than the more closely watched retail sales.

The disappointing wholesale trade report comes on the heels of poor data in June for exports and manufacturing sales.

Write to David George-Cosh at david.george-cosh@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 21, 2017 08:58 ET (12:58 GMT)