Little Upside Seen In February Retail Sales

Retailers are announcing February U.S. same-store sales figures Thursday morning, and research firm Retail Metrics had forecast a year-over-year increase of just 0.1% for the month. That’s not much, but does improve on January’s same-store sales decline of 13%. We’ve been tracking four chains in these monthly reports, but Stein Mart Inc. (NASDAQ: SMRT) will no longer report monthly sales figures. That leaves just three to report this morning, with Gap Inc. (NYSE: GPS) expected to release sales figures after markets close Thursday. Retail Metrics expects same-store sales to drop 2% year over year, with the company’s Banana Republic sales falling 7.7%. Read more at 24/7 Wall St.