Brazil: May headline retail sales weighed down by wholesale group

Research evidence excerpt

Brazil: May headline retail sales weighed down by wholesale group

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

16 July 2026

Brazil

May headline retail sales weighed down by wholesale

group

EM, Economic and Policy Research

Vinicius Moreira

(55-11) 4950-3195

vinicius.moreira@jpmorgan.com

Mirella Sampaio

• Headline sales disappointed and fell 0.2% in May (JPM : +0.9%; consensus : (55-11)mirella.sampaio@jpmorgan.com4950-3289

+0.8%)

Gustavo Ribeiro

• Core sales expanded only slightly, also below expectations, and following a (55-11) 4950-4059

sharp decline in April gustavo.ribeiro@jpmorgan.com

Banco J.P. Morgan S.A.

• That said, today’s result was significantly affected by the wholesale series

introduced in 2023

• We see the risks to our 2Q GDP estimate of 2% q/q saar as balanced

Following the weak services output, retail sales were another disappointment

among the May figures. We continue to expect soft activity readings in the near

term to confirm the activity deceleration, but we recognize that today’s result was

negatively affected by the specific wholesale sales group, a series introduced in

2023.

After a sharp 1.5% drop in April, core sales rose just 0.1% m/m sa, falling short of

our expectation for a partial recovery (+0.4%) and the consensus (+0.5%).

Headline sales fell 0.2%, against expectations for a 0.8% gain. The composition,

however, was less weak than the headline suggests, with declines in only 3 of the

10 sectors surveyed, implying that the drag was concentrated in the broader, more

volatile components rather than being broad-based (Table 1). The wholesale food

and beverage line was especially weak in today’s reading. Accordingly, our

headline and core sales series adjusted for the methodological changes showed