German unemployment unexpectedly drops but so do retail sales.

German unemployment has unexpectedly fallen for the first time in 10 months in January, declining 16,000 to 2.92M vs consensus for a rise of 8,000. The jobless rate dropped to 6.8% from 6.9% in December. "The German labor market is in a good position," says SocGen economist Anatoli Annenkov. However, retail sales cratered 4.7% on year in December, far worse than forecast and representing the largest decline since May 2009