The five major U.S. department stores’ revenues for the third quarter to October 31 fell 1.3% on a year earlier, worse than the 0.8% decline expected by analysts. A 4% disappointment from JC Penney was offset by a 2% outperformance by Nordstrom. The latter cut inventories, which may explain how it bucked the 5% drop in national imports of department store products that occurred in the quarter. For the fourth quarter analyst expectations are for revenues to be 0.1% higher than a year earlier, compared to imports of apparel, accessories and furniture that fell 5% in the month of October.