Retail Sales Fall 0.6%, Third Straight Week of Decline

U.S. retailers’ same-store sales fell 0.6% last week, the third straight week-to-week decline, raising concern that stores will miss sales forecasts this holiday season, according to data released Tuesday.

Bank of Tokyo economist Michael Niemira cut his estimate for November-December same-store sales to a gain of 2% to 4%, from a 4% rise. Winter storms in the Midwest and South-Central U.S. damped demand, he said. Shopper traffic at malls fell 9.6% in the seven days ended Dec. 16 from a year ago, the National Retail Federation and RCT Systems Inc. said.

Analysts had expected sales to pick up in mid-December as consumers who had postponed buying gifts started their holiday shopping. A sales surge in the final days before Christmas may not be enough to shore up retailers’ profits, which likely will be hurt by steep price cuts, analysts and investors said.

“It’s too late to save Christmas now,” said analyst Brian James of Loomis, Sayles & Co., which holds such retail shares as Target Corp. “I didn’t expect it to be this bad. I now expect [fourth-quarter] profit will be below what I’d thought prior to Thanksgiving.”

Retailers have been slashing prices to draw shoppers amid concerns that consumer spending may slow because of rising interest rates and energy prices and declines in the stock market. The discounts so far have failed to give sales the expected boost, and many retailers have said sales this month are below estimates.

Shares of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. fell $2.56 to close at $48, Target fell $2.94 to close at $28.75, and Federated Department Stores Inc. fell $2.13 to close at $29. Sears, Roebuck & Co. fell 53 cents to close at $33.37, and J.C. Penney Co. fell 31 cents to close at $8.94. All trade on the New York Stock Exchange.

Sales at stores open at least a year fell 0.3% in the week ended Dec. 9 from the prior week, when sales fell 2.6%. Consumers this year have an extra weekend to complete their shopping compared with last year because Christmas falls on a Monday.