Europe's Retail Sales Just Plunged

September's retail sale figures are the eurozone's latest grim economic indicator: sales dropped 1.3% from August to September, up just 0.6% from September last year. Some recovery.

Analysts had expected a 0.8% drop in sales between August and September, which would still have left the figure up by a modest 1.2% from September last year.

Not only are the eurozone's retail sales not back at pre-crisis levels, they're not even back at 2010 levels, still hurting from the European Central Bank's 2011 rate hikes.