The data released by the Canadian Statistics Office on Friday revealed a mixed performance of retail sales data during last July, as retail sales came in below market expectations, recording a growth of 0.3%, which is lower than the market expectations that indicated a growth of 0.4%. The previous reading of the index recorded a growth of 0.1% during June.

During the same period, the retail sales index with its core value - excluding automobile sales - achieved strong growth of 1.0%, while market expectations indicated the index would grow by only 0.5%. The previous reading for the index recorded a contraction in retail sales of about 0.8% during June, which was revised to show a contraction of only 0.7%.

It is worth noting that this index measures the change in the total value of inflation-adjusted sales at the retail level; this index is a measure of the value of goods sold by retailers based on a sample of retail stores of various types and sizes. The data includes all sales conducted online.