WASHINGTON, Nov 14: US consumers hunkered down in the face of a sharply slowing economy and a global financial crisis, sending retail sales plunging a record 2.8 per cent in October, government data showed on Friday.

The monthly decline in retail sales reported by the Commerce Department was the fourth in a row and far steeper than analysts’ consensus forecast of a seasonally adjusted drop of 2.1 per cent.

It was the deepest decline since the department began reporting the indicator in 1992.

“Another ugly month that caps off four consecutive months of increasingly steep declines,” said Brian Bethune at IHS Global Insight.—AFP