California Business Minute™

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

The advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for December, adjusted
for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes,
were $343.2 billion, a decrease of 2.7 percent (±0.5%) from the previous month and 9.8
percent (±0.7%) below December 2007

Retail trade sales were down 2.7 percent (±0.5%) from November 2008 and were 10.8
percent (±0.7%) below last year. The 2.7 percent slump marked the sixth straight month
of declines, the longest string since comparable records began in 1992, the Commerce
Department said today in Washington.

Gasoline stations sales were down 35.5 percent (±1.5%) from December 2007 and motor
vehicle and parts dealers sales were down 22.4 percent (±2.3%) from last year.

The new retail numbers offered an epitaph for what economists and retailers called the worst
holiday shopping season in decades: Electronics sales were down 1 percent in December
from a month earlier; food and drinks fell by 1.4 percent, and sales at clothing stores were
2.5 percent lower, the Commerce Department said.

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