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Oil prices rose above $79 a barrel Monday for the first time in four weeks as an extended cold snap triggered an end-of-year rally in energy futures.

Benchmark crude for February delivery added 72 cents to settle at $78.77 a barrel in light, holiday trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices rose as high as $79.12 earlier in the day, the highest since Nov. 18.

Futures contracts for oil, natural gas and heating oil have all become more expensive this month as snowstorms blanketed parts of the country and a sharp drop in supplies of crude and other fuels surprised traders.

More frigid temperatures are expected, with up to 4 inches of snow forecast for New England, and up to 7 inches of snow along the eastern shores of the Lower Great Lakes.

Spot prices are starting to perk up as a result.

According to the latest data from the Energy Information Administration, natural gas prices jumped earlier in December to the highest levels since January, and heating oil prices climbed during the middle of this month.

Still, the winter chill hasn’t boosted energy demand above last year’s levels. The U.S. is consuming less petroleum than it did at the same time last year, when oil and gas prices were cheaper and the economy was in recession.

American refiners have cut back on oil imports, which has helped reduce supplies and increase prices. But analyst Andrew Lipow said that oil prices also are rising as China and India expand their petroleum imports.

"That oil is finding a buyer somewhere," Lipow said.

At the pump, retail gas prices rose by less then a penny overnight to a new national average of $2.603 a gallon, according to auto club AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service.

Gas prices have edged up for three consecutive days, albeit slowly, for the first time since the beginning of the month. A gallon of regular unleaded is 2.4 cents cheaper than last month.

In other Nymex trading in January contracts, heating oil climbed 3.79 cents to settle at $2.0735 a gallon while gasoline added 2.88 cents to settle at $2.0184 a gallon. Natural gas increased by 34.7 cents to settle at $5.99 per 1,000 cubic feet.

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The health care reform bill approved by the Senate on Thursday would do more than any proposal yet to reduce the deficit over time - by an estimated $132 billion over 10 years and by substantially more thereafter.

But reducing the deficit is not entirely synonymous with the oft-stated goal of health reform: reducing the growth rate in health care costs and expenditures - often referred to as "bending the cost curve."

That growth rate is what drives federal spending on Medicare and other federal health programs.

And it’s what budget experts say will pummel the federal budget in future years if nothing is done to change it.

So how would the Senate bill fare in bending the cost curve from the perspective of the federal budget? The short answer is the ever-unsatisfying "it depends."

The Congressional Budget Office estimates the bill could over time reduce the federal budget commitment to health care - that’s spending on programs like Medicare plus the amount of health-related federal tax breaks.

For instance, the CBO estimates that Medicare spending per beneficiary would grow by an average of 2% on an inflation-adjusted basis over the next two decades. That’s half the 4% annual growth rate that has marked the past two decades.

But that estimated reduction is highly dependent on a number of factors.

More than anything, it depends on whether this and future Congresses will do what the bill says … to the letter. The budget agency noted such stick-to-itiveness is rare when it comes to major legislation and said the bill includes measures that "might be difficult to sustain over a long period of time" - such as reduced pay increases for various Medicare service providers.

And reducing the federal budgetary commitment to health care also depends on how well the cost-bending provisions in the legislation work.

In addition to the Medicare savings called for in the bill, two other major provisions could help bend the cost curve, according to former CBO Director Donald Marron.

The first is the creation of an Independent Payment Advisory Board that would recommend ways to reduce Medicare’s spending growth beyond what the legislation calls for. The second is the establishment of an excise tax on very expensive health plans intended to encourage employers and their workers to become more consumer savvy in their health spending choices.

The CBO said in particular that the bill’s savings potential depends on whether the new Medicare board’s recommendations effectively control the growth rate in Medicare spending.

"We need real entitlement reform," said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, another former CBO director. He thinks the board could help make meaningful fixes, but he doubts that Congress will follow the board’s toughest recommendations payday loans for bad credit.

Savings could be jeopardized, further, if any cost-bending provision is weakened or eliminated when the Senate and House hammer out their differences early next year on what a final health reform bill should look like.

Lastly, how far the Senate bill bends the cost curve depends on the success of pilot programs in the legislation designed to make health care delivery more cost-efficient.

"They’re setting up a framework under which we can learn what bends the cost curve over time," said Josh Gordon, policy director at the Concord Coalition, a deficit watchdog group.

In the meantime, while the bill is projected to reduce the deficit in between 2010 and 2019, the federal budget commitment to health care will increase by an estimated $200 billion because of provisions in the bill that call for, among other things, the federal government to subsidize the purchase of insurance by many Americans.

Best-case scenario

CBO estimates are never flawless. The agency strives to offer middle-of-the-road readings, neither too optimistic nor too pessimistic. And they’re based on the language of legislation, not the political realities of Congress.

"I would say the risks [including the political ones] tend to lean towards everything costing more and saving less, but it isn’t out of the realm of possibility that the bill could save more than CBO suggests," Gordon said.

Assume for a moment, though, that the CBO analysis is dead-on. The agency estimates that the Senate bill could reduce federal budget deficits by between one-quarter percent and one-half percent of GDP in the decade after 2019.

That’s a step toward putting the federal budget on a more sustainable track. But it’s just a start.

"It’s a relatively modest contribution to reducing the long-term debt overhang," said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., in an interview with C-SPAN.

Here’s what modest means. The so-called fiscal gap is estimated to be anywhere from 4% to 8% of GDP, Marron said. That’s a measure of how much spending would need to be permanently cut or taxes permanently raised if lawmakers were to put the federal budget on a more sustainable track long-term.

The Senate bill could move the needle by 0.5% of GDP in CBO’s best-case scenario.

While that doesn’t seem like a lot, it’s far from nothing, especially given how hard the goal of curbing health costs is. And it’s an indication of just how hard the fight will be next year when lawmakers are expected to consider proposals for how to address deficit reduction long-term. 

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South Korean banks may become more willing to finance acquisitions next year as the economy rebounds, said Morgan Stanley Executive Director Peter Chang.

Lenders may “begin to become more open over the next year on providing acquisition financing for deals,” Chang, 32, who oversees Morgan Stanley’s mergers and acquisitions advisory in South Korea, said in an interview in Seoul yesterday. “Improvements in the availability of financing will also help drive the overall level of M&A activity.”

South Korea’s benchmark stock index has jumped 47 percent this year as Asia’s fourth-largest economy leads a regional rebound from the deepest recession since the Great Depression. The economic recovery will fuel overseas takeovers by South Korean companies, Chang said.

“Korea’s economy has held up very well relative to other countries during the financial crisis,” he said. “We think that will create more opportunities for outbound M&A.”

South Korea’s growth will outpace all except China and India among the world’s 15 largest economies over the next two years, according to the International Monetary Fund. The average capital-adequacy ratio at the country’s 18 banks rose to 14.07 percent at the end of September, the highest since at least 2003, the Financial Supervisory Services said Nov. 25.

The ratio, which measures banks’ capital reserves against assets at risk, had fallen to as low as 10.86 percent a year earlier, forcing the government to set up a 20 trillion won ($17 billion) fund to replenish their capital.

Daewoo, Hynix

Morgan Stanley was the top adviser in mergers involving Korean companies this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The New York-based company advised Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction Co. on its 451.6 million euro ($644 million) acquisition of Skoda Power AS of the Czech Republic, the South Korean company’s largest overseas takeover.

Not all companies expected to be up for sale next year will find buyers, Chang said. Korea Development Bank plans to select advisers this month for the sale of Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co., the world’s second-biggest shipbuilder. Hynix Semiconductor Inc. creditors are accepting letters of intent from potential bidders until Jan. 29.

South Korea’s Financial Services Commission said Dec. 16 the government will focus on selling control of Daewoo Shipbuilding, Hynix, Daewoo International Corp. and Daewoo Electronics Corp. next year.

“It remains to be seen if these deals can all be completed over the coming year,” Chang said. “Particularly for larger assets, there are typically only a limited number of parties who are logical, viable acquirers.”

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Passenger traffic continues to decline at Mineta San Jose International Airport, but the decreases are growing smaller.

In November, traffic was down 4.2 percent compared to November 2008, according to the weekly report from Debra Figone, San Jose city manager. During the summer months, monthly passenger decline percentages were consistently in the low double digits.

"The smaller decline reflects the retention of passengers on SJC's other flights and resulting higher load factors despite fewer flights, and it could be an indicator that business and leisure travel are in the early stages of recovery," Figone said in her report.

The airport, owned and operated by the city, has suffered passenger declines and a growing number of canceled flights for more than two years, as have many airports nationwide. Dating back to September 2007, Mineta San Jose has seen its daily flight volume drop from 190 to about 150. Passenger volume dropped from 10.7 million in 2007 to 9.7 million in 2008.

There has been some good news in recent weeks. On Dec. 15, JetBlue Airways announced it will restore daily nonstop service between San Jose and Boston, starting May 13. Connecting two of the nation¹s high-tech capitals, the San Jose-to-Boston

JetBlue flight will be another version of the so-called "nerd bird" flights, which is what frequent fliers call the twice-daily Alaska Airlines flights that connect Silicon Valley and Austin, Texas. Alaska resumed those flights in late summer, after American Airlines dropped its San Jose-to-Austin service earlier this year low interest personal loan.

The new JetBlue flight beginning in May will depart San Jose at 9 p.m. daily, arriving in Boston at 5:30 a.m. local time. The Boston-to-San Jose flight will depart Boston at 4:25 p.m. local time, arriving in San Jose at 8:02 p.m. JetBlue had nonstop San Jose-Boston flights beginning in 2004, but began routing the connection through New York in 2008.

Last month, Horizon Air/Alaska Airlines announced it will launch twice-daily direct service from Spokane, Wash. to Sacramento and San Jose starting March 26. One daily flight from Spokane will operate nonstop to Sacramento and continue on to San Jose, while a second flight will operate nonstop to San Jose and continue on to Sacramento. The new service also includes a second daily roundtrip between San Jose and Sacramento, facilitating same-day business trips in each direction between Silicon Valley and the state capitol.

Horizon Air started a seasonal daily flight connecting San Jose and the Mammoth Mountain Ski Area this week, running through March, to accommodate skiers heading to the huge eastern Sierra Nevada resort.

David Vossbrink, the airport's communications manager, has told the Business Journal that airport officials hope the facility's major renovation and expansion will be instrumental in helping attract new flights and carriers. The $1.3 billion Terminal Area Improvement Program, scheduled for completion in June, is highlighted by the 380,000-square-foot, $342 million Terminal B Concourse, parts of which have already opened.

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The Sedona Film Festival is raffling off a $50,000 solar system to benefit the annual event.

The festival, now in its 16^th year, will sell 3,000 of the tickets at $20 each or six for $100 in order to raise money for the festival. The system is being donated by the Cottonwood-based Arizona Solar Power payday loan.

The idea to raise money is based on the festival’s new endeavors into sustainable media.

For info: www.sedonafilmfestival.com.

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Most Europeans believe the worst of the economic crisis has yet to feed through to the labor market, the European Union said, citing a Eurobarometer survey.

Some 54 percent of respondents “believe the worst is still to come regarding the impact of the crisis on jobs,” while 38 percent say it already has reached its peak. The poll of more than 30,000 people in 30 countries across Europe was conducted from Oct. 23 through Nov. 18.

“Citizens have clearly identified jobs as their main concern, and the EU must continue to give its full attention and commitment to dealing with the crisis,” Margot Wallstroem, vice president of the European Commission, the EU executive in Brussels, said in a statement.

The number of people employed in the euro region declined 2.1 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, the largest drop since the data were first collected in 1996, the EU’s statistics office in Luxembourg said today. From the prior quarter, employment fell 0.5 percent.

“Even though the euro zone exited recession in the third quarter and activity is continuing to improve in the fourth quarter, growth is unlikely to be strong enough to generate net jobs for some considerable time,” Howard Archer, chief European economist at IHS Global Insight in London, said in a note one hour payday loan. “Unemployment still seems likely to rise significantly higher, thereby weighing down on consumer spending.”

Jobless Rate

Europe’s jobless rate has risen to 9.8 percent, the highest since December 1998, and is forecast by the commission to increase to 10.7 percent next year.

“Even if the European economies are showing signs of recovery, concern about the economic situation and unemployment is as widespread as in spring 2009,” the authors of the survey said. “Around half of Europeans consider unemployment to be the most important issue that their country faces.” Joblessness is “the top national concern” in 19 EU member states, up from 18 in the Eurobarometer survey carried out in June and July, today’s report showed.

Some 51 percent of Europeans deem jobs the most important issue, followed by the overall economy at 40 percent and inflation at 19 percent, tied with crime.

“The economic ‘feel-bad’ factor appears to be fading,” the authors of the report said. “For the first time since autumn 2007, short-term expectations about the economic situation are moving in a positive direction.”

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Hawaii stocks were mixed Friday as Wall Street was up slightly following a jump in retail sales.

Hawaii stocks seeing gains:

• Hawaiian Holdings Inc. (Nasdaq: HA), parent company of Hawaiian Airlines, up 3.9 percent to $7.39.

• Bank of Hawaii Corp. (NYSE: BOH) up slightly to $45.57.

• Alexander & Baldwin (NYSE: ALEX) up slightly to $32.82.

• Territorial Bancorp (Nasdaq: TBNK), parent company of Territorial Savings Bank, was up slightly to $17.33.

• Cyanotech Corp. (Nasdaq: CYAN), was up 7.3 percent to $4.40.

• Maui Land & Pineapple (NYSE: MLP) up a bit to $5.85.

Hawaii stocks seeing declines:

• Hoku Scientific (Nasdaq: HOKU) was down 5 installment payday loans.3 percent at $2.47.

• Central Pacific Financial Corp. (NYSE: CPF) was down 1.6 percent to $1.16.

• Hawaiian Electric Industries (NYSE: HE), parent company of American Savings Bank and Hawaiian Electric Co., down slightly to $20.69.

• Barnwell Industries (Amex: BRN) was down slightly at $4.32.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended up 66 points at 10,472, the S&P 500 was up 4 points at 1,106 and the Nasdaq Composite Index closed down points at 2,190.

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Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling is considering a levy on bankers’ bonuses and this week may reverse a tax cut for Britain’s richest households in efforts to win over voters before next year’s election.

Darling yesterday refused to rule out a tax on excessive bonus payments, although he pledged to hold back from measures that would harm Britain’s banks. He said that lowering the inheritance tax for the richest people is no longer a priority for the Pre-Budget Report on Dec. 9.

“We are not going to be held to ransom by people who believe you can pay extremely large bonuses regardless of what’s going on,” Darling told BBC television yesterday. “You have to be fair. You have to be reasonable. But you have got to keep an eye on what the long term effects are.”

Darling and Prime Minister Gordon Brown are seeking to persuade voters that David Cameron’s Conservative Party, which is sticking to a similar inheritance tax plan, is siding with the rich at a time when the country is recovering from the worst economic crisis since World War II. That strategy has helped Brown’s Labour Party erode Cameron’s lead in opinion polls.

Darling said he has not yet seen bonus plans from government-controlled Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and that he has the power to veto any proposals he considers excessive. Darling has also said that he is opposed to punitive measures that would damage a bank’s capital position, making it less likely that he will introduce an industry-wide windfall tax.

“It’s not a black and white world,” Darling said.

‘Super-Tax’

The government may impose a one-year windfall tax on British banks that would raise several hundred million pounds, the BBC reported, without attribution. Options may include a “super-tax” on big bonus earners, a larger employers’ national insurance charge or a direct tax on investment banks, the BBC said.

George Osborne, the Conservative lawmaker who shadows Darling in Parliament, told the same program that he “wouldn’t rule out” a charge on excessive individual bonuses if his party defeats Labour in the election, which has to take place before June.

An ICM Research poll for the Sunday Telegraph showed that the Conservatives are on course to obtain a majority of between 20 and 25 seats in the 646-seat House of Commons. A ComRes Ltd. survey Dec. 1 showed that the U.K. may be heading for a so- called hung Parliament, with Cameron leading Brown by 10 percentage points, down 3 points from October.

Darling stepped up the attack yesterday, saying Osborne’s plea to voters to endure tougher times isn’t consistent with tax cuts for the rich.

Privileged Upbringing

A YouGov Plc poll in yesterday’s Sunday Times showed that more than half of the 2,000 people interviewed viewed the Conservatives as the party of the rich. Cameron said Brown had been “spiteful’ in his efforts to tell voters of his privileged upbringing and elite schooling.

“I really can’t believe it would be the first priority of any government, at this time, to give a tax cut to the top 2 percent of estates in this country,” Darling said yesterday.

Darling said in 2007 that he would raise the inheritance tax threshold to 350,000 pounds ($578,000) from 325,000 pounds for single people and to 700,000 pounds from 650,000 pounds for couples, starting April 2010. Cameron’s Conservatives want to abolish the tax for single people with estates below 1 million pounds and for couples with estates below 2 million pounds.

“If the Labour Party wants to say don’t aspire to get on in life, then so be it,” Osborne said. “It’s part of their lurch to the left.”

Cutting Waste

Darling said this week’s budget statement will spell out some detail on how he plans to implement his pledge to reduce the deficit by as much as half over four years. In April, the budget suggested the chancellor would have to find as much as 60 billion pounds to achieve this.

Darling has already announced tax increases that will account for about one-quarter of that amount, and has earmarked about 9 billion pounds by cutting waste in government departments, leaving him the challenge of finding a further 40 billion pounds by reducing government spending.

Darling told the BBC yesterday that he will scrap a 12.4 billion-pound computer program for the National Health Service that is being developed mainly by iSoft Plc. Similar reductions, rather than staff cuts in schools and hospitals, would indicate “the direction of travel” in this week’s report, he said.

“The NHS had quite an expensive IT system and I don’t think we need to go ahead with it now,” he said.

Brown later today will say that the government will slash other non-essential government programs as it seeks to reduce the deficit.

Fragile Economy

The government will “prioritize the necessities and postpone the things we can do without,” and it “will go further than we have ever gone before in streamlining central government,” Brown will say in a speech today.

Brown said on Dec. 4 in his weekly podcast that a plan to move more government services online would save about 400 million pounds a year.

Darling’s view is that the economy is too fragile to take more steps to repair the 175 billion-pound deficit this year, a Treasury official said this week. Darling will challenge the Labour government’s opponents to spell out their plans on what they plan to reduce, the official said.

The pound snapped two weeks of declines against the euro last week as industry reports showed that U.K. services and manufacturing industries expanded in November, indicating that the recovery is taking hold.

Winning Support

Darling’s approach, contrasting with Conservative Party calls to make deeper and faster cuts, won the support of two groups in London yesterday. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research, a London-based research group that counts the Treasury and the Bank of England as clients, said Darling should keep stimulating the economy during the next few months before reducing the deficit.

The British Chambers of Commerce said the government should refrain from cutting the fiscal deficit too quickly as the nation’s economic recovery faces “major risks,”

Darling will lower his forecast for the U.K. economy this year, saying the financial crisis has inflicted far deeper pain than he predicted in April, a government official said Nov. 27. Gross domestic product will fall 4.75 percent in 2009, compared with the 3.5 percent drop forecast seven months ago, the official said. Darling said yesterday that growth in 2010 will be “moderate.”

Treasury officials said last week that Darling will scale back his estimate for the cost of bailing out Britain’s banks to no more than 10 billion pounds, from 50 billion pounds.

The reduction in the sum set aside in the government’s accounts to pay for losses will shave about 40 billion pounds off the Treasury’s debt, now about 792 billion pounds, the officials said.

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One year after he was restructured out of the telecom sector and into unemployment, Bruce Bracken got a full-time job again.

His ordeal started in November 2008, as Canada’s unemployment rate began to rise. It ended in November 2009, when Bracken got one of the 79,100 new jobs Statistics Canada said was created last month across the country, with Toronto and Ontario leading the surge.

The remarkable growth, which one analyst called "stunning," dropped the national unemployment rate down a notch to 8.5 per cent, the federal agency said on Friday, though many predict this number will rise in 2010.

During his year working contracts, spending time with his two children, and volunteering with Habitat For Humanity, Bracken heard it all, including: "If we could hire two, we would hire you."

"I got a lot of silver medals," joked Bracken, 45, from the office of his new employer, Toronto-based Upstream Works Software.

His company’s decision was part of a surge in private sector hiring across the county, which saw 27,000 jobs created in Ontario – 21,000 of them in Toronto.

The bulk of Canada’s new jobs were created in the services sector, the agency said.

"It’s certainly encouraging, an economy can’t live off the government alone," said Avery Shenfeld, chief economist at CIBC World Markets, referring to the government stimulus projects that will likely not last through the next year.

He also cautioned monthly statistics such as these can be misleading and that multiple-month analysis is more accurate. Shenfeld said that after July, Canada has gained a steady 25,000 jobs per month.

By anyone’s calculation, November’s job growth is nowhere close to employing all those who lost jobs during the entire recession.

The country has lost 321,000 jobs since October 2008 payday loans for self employed.

And by Statistics Canada’s calculations, even Ontario’s strong growth was not enough to dent the province’s 9.3 per cent unemployment rate.

Toronto managed to shave 0.1 per cent off its higher unemployment rate, bringing it to 9.5 per cent.

In Ottawa, Transport Minister John Baird said the federal government is pleased with the numbers, but added: "We can’t, you know, pop the champagne corks."

The majority of these jobs – more than 73,000 of them across the country – were in Ontario, Quebec and Alberta, and were mainly in the service sector, particularly education services.

However, this latter point could be what Shenfeld calls "statistical noise," or could reflect one of two things: either this is pickup from September’s academic hiring or it’s hiring to handle the surge of students fleeing the recession in postgraduate studies.

Full-time jobs increased by 39,000 and part-time unemployment grew by more than 40,000, all while the number of the self-employed dropped – which analysts said was positive, considering the self-employed are not as well paid.

On Dec. 1, Statistics Canada recorded third-quarter GDP growth of 0.1 per cent – 0.4 per cent at the annualized rate – which effectively put an end to the recession.

A recession is defined by at least two consecutive quarters of GDP decline.

In September, the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development said Canada’s unemployment would only worsen throughout 2010.

With files from Susan Delacourt

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NEW YORK–The nation's retailers suffered miserably through November as a modestly positive start to the holiday shopping season wasn't strong enough to offset weak spending the rest of the month.

After posting two consecutive monthly sales gains after more than a year of declines, merchants collectively posted a surprise 0.3 percent decrease for November, compared with a year ago when business plummeted to historic lows as spooked shoppers clamped down after the financial meltdown. The sales decrease is an ominous sign for an economy in the early stages of a fragile recovery.

Now, the big worry is whether consumers won't go back to the stores until the final hours before Dec. 25 as they wait for even bigger discounts in a season that many analysts had hoped would generate sales that would be unchanged from a year ago.

According to sales results announced Thursday, most stores including department store chains Macy's Inc.,Children's Place Retail Stores Inc., teen merchant Abercrombie & Fitch Co. and discounter Target Corp. posted sales declines. Warehouse club operator Costco Wholesale Corp. posted a sales gain, though it's smaller than expected. Another exception was Limited Brands Inc., which runs Victoria's Secret and Bath & Body Works. It reported a solid sales gain instead of the sales decrease that Wall Street projected.

The figures are based on sales at stores open at least a year and are considered a key indicator of a retailers' health because they exclude the effects of store expansions or closings.

The 0.3 percent drop, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers-Goldman Sachs Index, is far worse than the original 5 to 8 percent growth forecast, which was whittled down to 3 to 4 percent gain earlier this week. The weak results come on top of a 7.7 percent drop a year ago.

"This suggests that consumers are still under a significant amount of pressure from unemployment and job worries," Ken Perkins, president of retail research firm Retail Metrics.

After consumers showed some signs of life in September and October, merchants saw a sales lull throughout November until shoppers crowded stores and malls for the early morning specials for the day after Thanksgiving payday loan lenders.

According to reports, however, shoppers were picky about what they bought for themselves and others, focusing on discounted basics like microwaves, boots and bed sheets over the holiday weekend. The hot areas were electronics and online shopping, which is not reflected in most of Thursday's sales figures.

Economists say that depressed spending could persist for several years amid stubbornly high unemployment – now at 10.2 percent, the highest in 26 years.

Amid a challenging economy, Costco fared well, posting a 6 percent increase; results were less than the 8.1 percent gain that analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expected. However, half of that increase results from currency shifts and higher gas prices.

But discounter Target said that strong sales during Thanksgiving weekend were not enough to offset weak business the rest of the month, sending sales in stores open at least a year down 1.5 percent. The drop was bigger than the 0.5 percent drop analysts were expecting and were on top of the 10.4 percent decline in November 2008.

Discount retailer Fred's Inc. posted a 3.3 percent decline, a bigger drop than the 1.6 percent decrease analysts predicted. The retailer said its pharmacy department was strong in the month but discretionary spending by consumers remained weak.

Consumers "utilized layaways to a much greater extent than last year, deferring recognition of those sales until December," said CEO Bruce A. Efird.

Macy's sales in stores open at least a year fell 6.1 percent in November, a bigger than analysts expected.

Macy's said the month was hurt by a shift of a sales event and warm weather. Still, Macy's said it had strong traffic early on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving when many Americans go shopping. Analysts had expected a 3.1 percent drop.

Abercrombie & Fitch's woes continued, with sales falling 17 percent, much worse than the 9.3 percent decline analysts predicted.

But Limited posted a 3 percent sales gain, surpassing estimates from analysts who had expected a 2.5 percent decline.

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