A more detailed picture of high street trading will emerge this week when Sainsbury’s and WH Smith post updates.

Supermarket chain Sainsbury’s will issue a keenly awaited second quarter trading update on Wednesday.

It will be examined for any evidence that discounters and the economic slowdown are impacting on sales performance, and comes a week after bullish comments from rival Tesco.

Sainsbury’s first quarter like-for-like sales growth slowed to 3.4%, down from 4.1% in the previous quarter and below the 5.1% seen this time last year.
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