Last-Minute Holiday `Surge' Pushes December Retail Sales Above Estimates

[Purveyor]

Source: Bloomberg

Jan. 7 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. retailers’ December sales gained more than analysts estimated, indicating higher holiday spending than some trade groups anticipated.

Sales climbed 14 percent at TJX Cos.’ stores open at least a year, beating the 5.9 percent average of analysts’ estimates compiled by Retail Metrics Inc. Aeropostale Inc. jumped 10 percent, compared with a 3 percent projection. Sears Holdings Corp. posted a sales gain and issued a profit forecast that topped analysts’ projections.

After an East Coast snowstorm snarled sales the weekend before Christmas, shoppers made up for it with online buying and discount hunting. A “last-minute sales surge” lifted December comparable-store sales 3 percent, the biggest gain since April 2008, Retail Metrics said today.

“Retailers are breathing a big sigh of relief here,” Ken Perkins, president of Swampscott, Massachusetts-based Retail Metrics, said today in a telephone interview.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aG4sG2aoTbik

[prolesunited]

1. Why would someone unrec this?

I'm not one for consumerism, but since half of our current economy is based on it, I'm glad to see signs of life.

Please quit rooting for the apocalypse. There is no guarantee that what replaces the current economy and landscape is going to be any better.

[Pirate Smile]

2. I rec'ed it and got it back to zero. I understand Republicans not wanting any good news (even

though that is rooting against the Country recovering) but I truly don't understand Dems rooting against it. They aren't Democrats, I guess - or there is the apocalypse people who think some Utopian economy would emerge from a horrible crash and true second great depression. I always wonder - do they realize how much more pain that would mean for so many people trying to get by? It seems truly bizarre to me. Plus, like you said, why would anyone assume that what would replace it would be any better.

[onehandle]

3. Because they're an America hatin' commie pinko.

Or just hate... oh, I don't know. Let's say Nancy Pelosi.

[Captain Hilts]

4. They hate the United States, Obama, Taylor Swift and Susan Boyle. nt

[jpak]

5. Because the doomers and haters want the economy and Obama to fail - for some selfish reason

It's a cult ya know...

:evilgrin:

[MissMillie]

6. What shopping I did do, I did on 12/23

So I guess I was part of the last-minute surge.

[bluestateguy]

7. V