And the annual seesaw begins: On Saturday the Statesman reported that “Black Friday traffic and sales indications appeared to be topping expectations…One analyst said that the increase could translate to a 4 percent or 5 percent holiday-spending jump this year from a year ago.”
On Sunday the Statesman reported that sales had edged up only slightly—retail spending rose only .3 percent, according to data released by a research firm.
Now we’ll get thrice-weekly updates about how seasonal sales are up—no, down—no, up…
Call me in January with the final total, and save all the newsprint in the meantime.
November 23, 2018
On November 22, 2018 the paper ran a column by Barry Ritholtz, a Bloomberg Opinion columnist, who explains why the predictions go up and down.
He says it’s because the numbers are based on surveys, not data; and people don’t really remember how much they spent last year and won’t predict well how much they’ll spend this year, so it’s really all guesswork.
It’s nice to have that mystery solved.
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