Brazil Retail sales fell in April, marking the first decline of the year

Research evidence excerpt

Brazil Retail sales fell in April, marking the first decline of the year

J P M O R G A N Latin America Economic Research

16 June 2026

Brazil

Retail sales fell in April, marking the first decline of the

year

• Core sales fell more than expected in April, with headline sales surprisingly EM, Economic and Policy Research

declining Vinicius Moreira

• This leaves retail sales tracking a negative performance in 2Q, aligning more (55-11)vinicius.moreira@jpmorgan.com4950-3195

closely with new loan growth

Cassiana Fernandez

• The nowcaster has now moved back closer to our 2% q/q saar GDP estimate (55-11) 4950-3369

for 2Q cassiana.fernandez@jpmorgan.com

• Risks to the deceleration in the second half of the year remain tilted to the Banco J.P. Morgan S.A.

upside

Following months of consistent strength, we had expected today's April retail sales

release to be weak, particularly the core component. In the event, core retail sales

fell 1.5%, below our expectation for a 1% decline and the consensus of -0.6%. The

largest surprise was in headline sales—we and the consensus had expected them

to expand (by 0.3% and 0.2%, respectively)—but which instead fell 0.7% m/m sa

(Figure 1). Relative to our expectations, the disappointment in headline sales

reflected three factors: the weak core, disappointing vehicle sales (which are

diverging from other coincident indicators), and a sharp slowdown in the

wholesale food and beverages category (Figure 2 and Table 1).

The April decline still left core sales growing 3.6% 3m/3m saar and headline sales

up 4.3% (Figure 3). However, this is leaving sales on track for a negative quarterly

performance in 2Q—even before what we preliminarily expect to be another soft

reading in May. The weakness this quarter is more aligned with the recent behavior