Why you shouldn't go shopping in the retail sector

According to recent statistics, retail sales are rising again. So is this a cue to buy back into the retail sector? Probably not...

After reporting slowing growth for much of last year, conditions on the high street seem to have picked up. Official statistics show that retail sales rose for the fifth month in a row between May and June. For the three months from April to June, sales were 2.1% ahead of the previous quarter. That's the highest quarterly growth rate since February 2004. So is this a cue to buy back into the retail sector?

Investing in retail: a short-lived revival

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John Stepek

John Stepek is a senior reporter at Bloomberg News and a former editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He graduated from Strathclyde University with a degree in psychology in 1996 and has always been fascinated by the gap between the way the market works in theory and the way it works in practice, and by how our deep-rooted instincts work against our best interests as investors.

He started out in journalism by writing articles about the specific business challenges facing family firms. In 2003, he took a job on the finance desk of Teletext, where he spent two years covering the markets and breaking financial news.

His work has been published in Families in Business, Shares magazine, Spear's Magazine, The Sunday Times, and The Spectator among others. He has also appeared as an expert commentator on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, BBC Radio Scotland, Newsnight, Daily Politics and Bloomberg. His first book, on contrarian investing, The Sceptical Investor, was released in March 2019. You can follow John on Twitter at @john_stepek.