Consumer confidence is still brimming with good cheer and results are already in (reformatted, emphasis mine):
“Wall Street is running around like a chicken with its head cut off, while Mr. and Mrs. Main Street are happy with their jobs, enjoying their best wage increases in a decade”… ~ Craig Johnson, president of Customer Growth Partners
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Total U.S. retail sales, excluding automobiles, rose 5.1% between Nov. 1 and Dec. 24 from a year earlier, according to Mastercard SpendingPulse, which tracks both online and in-store spending with all forms of payment. Overall, U.S. consumers spent over $850 billion this holiday season, according to Mastercard. The figures suggest a stock-market swoon and partial government shutdown haven’t curbed consumer confidence and spending, according to the Wall Street Journal…Mastercard found that sales from online shopping grew 19.1% between Nov. 1 and Dec. 24 compared with the year-earlier period…Stores that mainly sell apparel, however, experienced robust sales, growing 7.9% during the same period. Overall, sales from bricks-and-mortar stores rose 3.3%.
(H/T: Conservative TreeHouse, Fox Business News)
