Higher food and gasoline prices. Costly heating bills. A credit market crunch. The deteriorating housing market. A worsening employment picture.

What does it all mean for U.S. retailers earnings? Quite possibly the worst quarterly decline in year-over-year earnings growth since the fourth quarter of 2000.

According to Retail Metrics, as of Thursday evening, roughly 45 percent of the 126 U.S. retailers in its Retail Metrics Retail Earnings Index had reported fourth-quarter results.

Looking at the ones that had reported, the firm said earnings are down 8.3 percent.

But factoring in estimates of the remaining retailers yet to report, industry analysts are looking for its Retail Metrics index to drop 9.5 percent – which would be the biggest quarterly decline since retail earnings plummeted 11.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2000, it said.
 
Retail Metrics said that of the 58 U.S. retailers that have reported fourth-quarter earnings so far, 57 percent have reported lower year-over-year operating income, while 34 percent have turned in year-over-year revenue declines.

“Retailers are clearly feeling the pain,” the note said.

(Photo: Reuters)