Mubasher: US retail sales dropped unexpectedly in January, marking their biggest decline in almost a year, data by the US Bureau of Labour Statistics showed on Wednesday.

Sales reached a value of $492.0 billion during the first month of 2018, down 0.3% from the previous month, and 3.6% from the same moth of the previous year.

Economists, however, had expected a rise of 0.2% in January.

The US dollar index last climbed 0.15% to 89.840 following the inflation and retail sales data.