U.S. Nov retail sales drop

By Brad Dorfman

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Many U.S. retailers posted sharply lower November sales at stores open at least a year, prompting some investors to pour into the sector on hopes the dismal results signalled a bottom for share values.

Discounter Wal-Mart Stores (WMT.N) bucked the trend with a bigger-than-expected rise, helped by lower gasoline prices and record sales of grocery items close to the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday.

Overall, same-store sales fell 2.1 percent, not quite as bad as the 2.4 percent average forecast, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Excluding results for Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, same-store sales fell 7.8 percent, worse than the 6.9 percent decline forecast by analysts, according to Thomson Reuters. That was the worst monthly performance since it began tracking sales data in 2000.

For example, Wal-Mart rival Target (TGT.N) posted a 10.4 percent drop in November same-store sales and forecast a mid-single-digit to low-double-digit drop for December.

The November same-store sales drop was the worst in more than 35 years, according to the International Council of Shopping Centres, which also again cut its forecast for the November-December holiday season. It now is calling for holiday sales to be flat to down 1 percent, compared with its previous forecast of a 1 percent increase.

But in a sign for the better, nearly half of the 35 retailers reviewed by Thomson Reuters beat bleak sales estimates.

"The reaction is that worse than this, we're unlikely to see. And when you think in those terms, you begin looking forward positively," Gilford Securities retail analyst Bernard Sosnick said.