1.   Analysts are expecting flat sales in the coming months.

2.   And the Gap Inc., the retailer that could do no wrong for well over a year, reported flat sales Thursday for the second month in a row.

3.   And on the flagship cola brands, both companies need to reverse flat sales by returning to the basics of the business.

4.   A Commerce Department tally published last week, which was based on a small sample of outlets, showed retail sales essentially flat in December.

5.   But with the music business experiencing flat sales and losing touch with its audience, nothing is a sure thing anymore.

6.   Companies that are mainstays of the computer-based new economy have continued to report flat sales and profits, and their stocks have performed accordingly.

7.   Consider what happened to shares in Lucent Technologies when the company announced flat sales and a profit decline in its first quarter.

8.   Earnings were also hurt by flat sales of digital signal processors, the chips used in cellular phones and disk drives.

9.   Enormous expansions do not usually produce flat sales.

10.   Export markets made up for flat sales at home, where a sales tax increase has scared off consumers.