Early prognostications of holiday retail sales are coming in fairly bullish, but some are accompanied by asterisks.
For one thing, the relatively steep year-over-year climbs are due in part to the disappointment of late last year, and not just to positive macro factors like high employment and rising wages. “Last December, the government shutdown, uptick in consumer savings, and a sharp stock market decline may have led to the lower growth season,” according to Daniel Bachman, Deloitte’s U.S. economic forecaster.
