That is how Tesco’s chief executive, Dave Lewis, describes the UK retail market. Yesterday’s profit warning from DFS and disappointing retail sales data from the Office for National Statistics spooked investors. Shares in Next went down by 6.1 per cent, while Marks & Spencer’s fell 4.7 per cent and Dunelm 5.1 per cent. Despite the “tough” market the UK’s largest retailer has reported the sixth consecutive quarter of like-for-like sales growth. Group like-for-like sales are up 1 per cent, while in the core UK market like-for-like sales were up 2.3 per cent.

Source: The Times June 16, 2017 07:52 UTC