Free Republic

Upscale stores benefit most from the end-of-season sales surge By Anne D'Innocenzio ASSOCIATED PRESS Friday, January 9, 2004 NEW YORK -- Consumers who kept retailers in suspense for weeks gave many store owners a better-than-expected holiday season after all, coming through at the last minute with a big spending spree and propelling retailers to their best December sales period in four years. December results issued Thursday by the nation's biggest retailers showed that late shoppers helped companies including Wal-Mart Stores Inc., J.C. Penney Co. Inc. and Target Corp. offset a slow start to the season. Still, the end-of-the-season sales surge...

U.S. Retailers Fare Better Than Expected 22 minutes ago Add Business - AP to My Yahoo! By ANNE D'INNOCENZIO, AP Business Writer NEW YORK - Consumers who kept retailers in suspense for weeks gave many storeowners a better-than-expected holiday season after all, coming through at the last minute with a big spending spree. Even struggling department stores ended the season with solid results. December results issued Thursday by the nation's biggest retailers showed that late shoppers helped companies including Wal-Mart Stores Inc., J.C. Penney Co. Inc., and Target Corp. offset a slow start to the season. Still, the end-of-the-season sales...

US chain store sales slow after Xmas rush -Redbook Tuesday January 6, 8:56 am ET NEW YORK, Jan 6 (Reuters) - Post-Christmas promotions dragged on U.S. chain store sales, but retailers reported moderate business across broad channels, Redbook said in a report on Tuesday. The pace of sales at major retailers grew by 3.4 percent on a year-over-year basis for the week ended Jan. 3, slowing a touch from 3.9 percent the preceding week, the report said. Sales ended December down 1.0 percent when compared to November. Store traffic remained high, even in the period following Christmas, but tight inventories...

NEW YORK - As the bills from holiday spending sprees arrive, Americans are finding that the mountain of debt they've built has gotten even higher.Consumer debt has more than doubled in the past 10 years to record levels, making it hard for many families to cope. For Bruce and Lorraine Esbensen, of Clifton Heights, Pa., trouble started when they spent lavishly on their wedding six years ago.They soon found themselves falling behind on their bills."Creditors were calling, and I knew if I paid one, I couldn't pay the other," Lorraine Esbensen remembers. "It was so painful I got to the...

<p>ShopperTrak's NRSE report says Christmas week sales jumped 24.6% over the same period last year.</p> <p>NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Last-minute shoppers and post-Christmas bargain hunters fired up holiday sales over the Christmas holiday week, a report said Tuesday.</p> <p>Sales for the week ended Dec. 27 jumped 24.6 percent over the same period a year ago, ShopperTrak said in its weekly National Retail Sales Estimate (NRSE) report.</p>

NEW YORK (AP) -- A late spending surge helped boost sales last week for many merchants, according to data released Monday, offering relief to retailers in a holiday season that is still projected to be only modestly better than a year ago. Internet sales and consumer electronics were the winners, both rising strongly from a year ago, but sales at department stores and toy stores fell. Unlike a year ago, when last-minute spending was insufficient to help retailers meet their holiday goals, this year's finale was strong enough to offset December's earlier weakness, according to Michael P. Niemira, chief economist...

<p>In the early spring of 1940, half a year after Germany invaded Poland, but during a falsely hopeful period called the phony war that preceded the major Anglo-German hostilities of World War II, Winston Churchill spoke to the House of Commons. He told them that "I will not make any prophecies about the future, which is doubly veiled by the obscurities and uncertainties of war ... We must not boast, or speak in terms of vain conceit and overconfidence ... [But] we trust in God and in our own arm uplifted in a cause which we devoutly feel carries with it the larger hopes and harmonies of mankind."</p>

<p>Yes, we're having an orange Christmas, and yes, the bills for holiday revels will arrive with a thud come January. But never fear, there's still some cheerful news to ponder today.</p> <p>The popularity of one traditional figure has not budged, for example.</p>

Christians around the globe may be forgiven for feeling somewhat less than festive this Christmas season. Persecution of Christians is becoming an increasingly familiar feature of the global landscape, and shows no signs of letting up. Terror also looms on a global scale – according to the World Evangelical Alliance, several radical Muslim groups have let it be known that they're planning attacks around Christmastime this year: Tensions are high in Indonesia, where police are guarding over 240 churches in and around Jakarta this Christmas: Jemaah Islamiya, the radical Muslim group that hopes to create an Islamic megastate in Southeast...

Ah, Christmas in New York. The tree in Rockefeller Center. Roasted chestnuts from street vendors. And F-16 fighter jets roaring overhead. Mayor Bloomberg confirmed yesterday that the NYPD has asked to have military jets patrol the skies over the city in response to the country's latest terrorism alert. "We always have to err on the side of being cautious," Bloomberg told reporters. "That's what our security forces are supposed to do, so the rest of us can go and spend time with our families and enjoy life." Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly called it a "prudent" request. It remained unclear last...