A Strong Start In The US Shopping Season Is &Nbsp, And Consumer Recovery Is All At Stake.

First look at the first weekend of the holiday shopping season in the United States

A survey by the industry group, a US Retail Consortium, showed that spending increased by $7 billion 400 million from Thanksgiving last Thursday to Sunday, compared with the same period in 2010. Retail stocks surged under the news and pushed the US stock market up.

But a closer look at the data will reveal that

"We just don't want to make any positive conclusions based on these data," said Paul Ashworth, an analyst at Capital Economics in Toronto.

Capital Economics analyzed the weekly sales data of the American International Shopping Center Association (ICSC) and found that the holiday shopping season with a strong start often ends in fits and starts.

In other words, consumers only promote retailers' activities that should have been advanced in the future, thereby benefiting from "black Friday" retailers.

The next Thanksgiving Day called "black Friday" marks the beginning of the shopping season.

Since the unemployment rate in the US is still hovering around 9%, and wages are hard to catch up with the pace of inflation.

The expenditure figures in the BIGresearch online survey show that overall sales increased by 16.4%, while the inflation adjusted hourly wage decreased by 12 in the 12 months ended October. Other data also showed that consumers had reduced their savings in order to meet consumer demand in recent months. According to the US business department data, the US consumer spending increased by 2.3% in the third quarter, while another report showed that disposable income fell by 2.1% during the same period.

Consumers' balance of payments can be compensated by credit cards.

According to a consumer survey conducted by Research Group, a total of 27.3% of respondents will use credit cards as the main means of payment for Thanksgiving weekend shopping, up from 16.3% in 2010.

MasterCard announced that the number of pactions on its credit cards increased by 17% over the 24 hours of black Friday, but it did not disclose the specific data of credit card and debit card pactions in 2010.

There is no denying that the decrease in the balance of mortgage loans may help release cash. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York announced on Monday that the total consumer credit in the third quarter was 0.6% lower than that in the second quarter.

* * Thanksgiving holiday business hours adjustment * *

One reason the US retailers Federation's data is raising doubts is that this year's black Friday seems to be a much bigger activity than it was a few years ago.

More shops are involved, and many shops open on Thursday at midnight, or even earlier, on Thanksgiving Day instead of waiting for their usual Friday morning at 5 or 6.

The increase in business hours during the peak season means that the comparison data may be distorted in the same period last year.

Ashworth believes that this will even distort the retail sales figures of the US government in the next two months.

The monthly retail sales report is generally inclusive, covering clothing, cars and gasoline items, and seasonally adjusted to eliminate holiday sales and other conventional factors.

But the US government may not take account of changes in store business hours or shopping habits.

In addition, extra spending on gifts may lead to reduced expenses in other areas, such as eating out.

"If people choose to spend more money on holiday gifts, they will spend less on random expenses such as restaurants and movie tickets, and retail sales data will exaggerate overall sales," said Ian Shepherdson, principal analyst at High Frequency Economics.

Many experts predict that, as in recent years, consumers will experience a long period of consumption from now until Christmas Eve.

"I think retail sales are going to be in a low ebb," said Brian Sozzi, an independent analyst. He noted that he was concerned about retail stocks.

"You will see consumers lose enthusiasm.

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More published or released data may help to understand consumer spending, but these data are flawed.

ShopperTrak estimates that black Friday's sales increase 6.6%.ShopperTrak uses the sensors in stores and shopping malls to calculate the traffic volume and analyzes the data for retail customers.

But this data only takes a single day, but the importance of this day is getting lower and lower, because more and more people are buying or buying online.

The contents of black Friday report released by NRF and ShopperTrak were very different last year. ShopperTrak's report showed that sales increased by 0.3%, while NRF's report showed that sales increased by 9.2% during the four day holiday period.

According to the NRF data, the final sales result is between two data, and retail sales increased by 5.2% in November and December.

MasterCard Advisors will publish the SpendingPulse report on Thursday, that is, through the statistical analysis of MasterCard payment system data. However, the part of non MasterCard payment can only be estimated.

And the data will only be released to MasterCard customers two days after its release. Its customers include buyer analysts and retailers, hoping to understand consumer shopping trends.

About more than 20 retailers will announce the November sales figures this week, many of which will be commented on Thanksgiving weekend.

But these samples are also very limited, excluding large retailers such as WAL-MART (Wal-Mart) and Best Buy, which are the winners of this weekend's analysts.

Even if these retailers report, there is a lack of important information, that is, the magnitude and discount of discount will damage profits.

If you want to know this information, you will have to wait until February when most retailers announce the fourth quarter earnings.

"The power of black Friday is not particularly encouraging because shoppers are more interested in discounts, indicating that the budgets of consumers are tight and retail profits are rising," Goldman Sachs analysts said in a research report.