The Christmas shopping season started even more miserably last month than many recession-wary merchants forecast.

Major U.S. retailers on Thursday released November reports showing that a key barometer of performance--sales at stores open more than one year--generally were down or up only modestly from their weak levels of a year earlier. The figures would look even worse if they were adjusted for inflation, which is running at 6.7% this year.

"The only clear trend is that consumer spending is getting very weak, very fast," said Barry Bryant, an analyst with Prudential-Bache Securities in New York.

An index of 47 retailers compiled by Prudential-Bache declined for the fifth consecutive month. It showed that sales at stores open more than one year--generally known as same-store or comparable-store sales--rose only 0.2% last month. In October, the gain was 1.9%.

Consumers, particularly in Southern California, should expect a continued blitz of price markdowns at department stores, analysts said. The slide in housing values in Southern California "has really slowed consumer demand," said Thomas H. Tashjian, an analyst with Seidler Amdec Securities in Los Angeles.

Retailers, he said, "are going to be promotional, because they planned on better business."

Analysts cited eroding consumer confidence, weakening regional economies, higher gasoline prices and warm weather across much of the country in November, which undermined sales of sweaters, coats and other winter apparel.

They also pointed to the individual problems of companies such as Sears, Roebuck & Co., J. C. Penney & Co. and Los Angeles-based Carter Hawley Hale Stores, parent of the Broadway-Southern California.

Sears, by some standards the nation's biggest retailer, reported that its same-store sales were off 2.4%. J. C. Penney's comparable-stores decline was 4.6%; Carter Hawley's was off 7.4%.

Circuit City Stores, a Richmond, Va.-based firm that is the nation's biggest consumer electronics retailer, said its comparable-stores' sales fell 6%. It cited increased competition in the Los Angeles area, where the Silo and Good Guys consumer electronics chains recently opened stores.

Another weak performer was May Department Stores, parent of May Co. California, whose same-store volume was off 5%.