California Business Minute™

Hi, I am Tim Johnson and welcome to the California Business Minute.

The Commerce Dept reported that advance estimates of U.S. retail and food
services sales for October, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday
and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $397.7 billion,
an increase of 0.5 percent(±0.5%) from the previous month and 7.2 percent
(±0.7%) above October 2010.

The increase in October well beat analysts' forecast for a 0.2 percent increase.
Excluding autos, retail sales increased a strong 0.6 percent in October after
increasing a robust 0.5 percent in September.

The strongest gains were seen in electronics & appliance stores which surged
3.7 percent in October, followed by building materials & gardening equipment
and non-store retailers both up 1.5 percent.  Also seeing gains were motor
vehicles, food & beverage, health & personal care, sporting goods & hobby,
miscellaneous store retailers, and food services & drinking places.

The largest decline was in clothing & accessory stores, down 0.7 percent, and
furniture & home furnishing, also down 0.7 percent. Gasoline station sales
also slipped. General merchandise store sales were unchanged in October.

I am Tim Johnson and this has been the California Business Minute.