U.S. December retail sales slip

December retail sales in the United States were 0.3 per cent lower than the previous month, the U.S. Census Bureau said Thursday.

Advanced estimates by the bureau pegged the total value of U.S. retail sales at $353 billion last month, slightly lower than November's strong figures.

The latestreport means retail sales for the calendar year 2009 came in 6.2 per cent lower than those in 2008, but the December sales figure is 5.4 per cent above the sales data for the same month in 2008.

Gas station sales were much higher, up more than 33 per cent in December 2009 compared to the same period a year earlier.

In releasing the negative December sales data, the census bureau also increasedthe amount by which sales grew in November. The bureau revised its November gain from 1.3 per cent to 1.8 per cent.

Thenegative December showing on the heels of a strong November suggests the recovery will be uneven, if nothing else, economists say.

"The holiday shopping season appears to have been a bit better than expected, although the bar was set pretty low," BMO economist Michael Gregory said in a report anticipating the release of the data Thursday.