The Pound sterling weakened by about 0.2 percent to tje level of 1.3740 to the US dollar. That  was happened in the middle of the European session. The England retail sales were also released. 

That retail data increased and beyond the market expectation. However, the preliminary survey result score of PMI is slowing down because of the “pingdemic” condition nowadays. 

Generally, the market sentiment is still shadowing by the risk – on / risk – off fluctuation. The England retail sales scored the increase of 0.5% month – over – month in June 2021.

This progress is unable to beat the -1.3 percent step back happened in the previous month. However, it beyond the consensus estimation where it is only in 0.4% level. 

The Yearly Retail Sales Increase

The yearly retail sales growth also reaches 9.7% which is a little bit higher than the consensus estimation in 9.6%. However, the market is not welcoming it warmly because it has the reason. 

The market think that the increasing retail sales in England is as the effect of Euro Championship in 2020 some times ago. Meanwhile, the pandemic also has its impact. 

The increasing of new cases, especially for the COVID-19 delta variant is possible to weight on the economy activity. It is although most of the social restriction has been revoked. 

It is possible that the retail sales will fall again for many months ahead. That is an opinion comes from Samuel Tombs, the England economist leader in the Pantheon Macroeconomics. 

The Food Purchase can Fade

Furthermore, Samuel said that the temporary push from the Euro 2020 on the food purchasing can fade. Meanwhile, the trust is higher although it cannot be a certain sign. 

It means that the higher trusted doesn’t mean that the economy activity level is also higher. It is caused by the increasing COVID-19 cases happened lately in some countries in the world. 

That increasing COVID-19 case, especially the new ones in England doesn’t trigger the amount of patient that must be hospitalised or the mortality numbers in that country. 

However, there are more people who accept the suggestion to do a self isolation because of the pingdemic phenomenon. The modern technology is now appearing amidst this situation. 

The New Application from NHS

An NHS application can be used to automatically detect the appearance of the same users in certain distances. After that, it will send a ‘ping' as a command to do a self – isolation. 

The isolation is usually must be done for about 10 days if the users have a contact with the other people who are positive in COVID-19. This app is a good one because of its benefits. 

Basically, it forces the hundred thousand of people out there to do a self isolation or quarantine. That also increases the public warning in doing their daily activities.

The evidence shows that the virus cases increase and pingdemic have a possibility to make the economy recovery in July is weaker. That was said by Paul Dales from the Capital Economics. 

Pingdemic has a Bad Effect

Pingdemic is addressed as a cause why a stepback can happen in a survey result of preliminary PMI or the Purchasing Managers' Index. That is for the manufacture and service sector in England for July.

The manufacture PMI score was corrected from 63.9 to become 60.4. Meanwhile, the service sector score felt from 62.4 to 57.8. Both of them are still near the highest range this year. 

However, they are far from the market expectation. The lower UK Services PMI is consistent with what the experts have seen in other high-frequency data. Delta has delayed the recovery for now.

However, they could likely still expect the positive third-quarter growth. It was stated by James Smith, an economist at ING where that opinion is making sense.