The nation's retail chains reported their sales for December today. Among the 5 largest chains, results were mixed. Wal-Mart gained a scant 1.1% over the previous December. K-Mart and Sears did decidedly better, logging respective gains of 5.2% and 6.8%. Dayton Hudson gained 3.0%; but, J. C. Penney's sales dropped 4.2% from a year ago.

Many specialty apparel retailers were hit especially hard: Sales at The Limited were down 5.0%, Talbot's was down 7.7%, and Ann Taylor dropped by 13.8%. The Gap bucked the trend with same store sales up 6.0%.

Upscale stores did well. Tiffany, for example, showed same store sales that were 13% higher than December of last year.

Telecheck, the nation's largest check acceptance firm, reported that December purchases by check were down 4.1% from the same period last year.

Byline: Lafferty (MF Merlin)