Roundup: American holiday sales hit records

by Peter Mertz

DENVER, the United States, Dec. 28 (Xinhua) -- American financial markets jumped after a report that holiday retail sales were up 4.9 percent from last year, with American President Donald Trump quickly taking credit.

"It's premature for the president to be taking credit for the increased retail sales," said business economist Douglas Hubscher.

"The economic programs sparking these sales were put into place by (former President Barack) Obama. If sales jump again next Christmas, then Trump can get credit for his tax breaks and economic incentive programs that would have spurred consumer confidence and spending," Hubscher told Xinhua Wednesday.

Few question the robust U.S. economy - where unemployment is at 4.1 percent, hiring up for 86 consecutive months - the longest streak in history - and the DOW hitting 24,823 Thursday - up from 19,650 in 2016.

U.S. consumer confidence and unemployment are at 17-year records - factors economists credit for the increased holiday sales.

President Trump tweeted the day after Christmas that "the market is up nearly 10% and Christmas spending is over $1 trillion," a figure refuted immediately by the National Retail Federation (NRF).

NRF said Wednesday its holiday sales projections were at 656 billion U.S. dollars.

Influential MasterCard released data the day after Christmas that retail sales between Nov. 1 and Christmas Eve were up almost 5 percent from last year - the biggest bump since 2011.

U.S. media were quick to validate the MasterCard SpendingPulse report with the Washington Post, USA Today, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, the Associated Press, and Reuters all reporting the news.

"It's the same thing that happened in 2006-2007," Hubscher said. "Increased sales are just a small part of the economic picture."

"The market was driven up artificially by a number of factors and people started feeling they had more spending power with wealth that wasn' t really there," Hubscher told Xinhua.

"The market has gone up a ton in the past 2 months - to almost 2,400 points. That's 20 percent in the past two months - and that has driven retail spending," Hubscher said.

"But it's a false perception by buyers that they' re financially better off," he said.

According to the MasterCard report, 2017 Online sales (up 18.1 percent) and last minute spending surges, amped up the 2017 holiday shopping season totals.

It was the second straight year that Online sales, with Amazon leading the way, were up almost 20 percent.

"Wait until the Visa sales come in," said Garrett Jones, a businessman in Carbondale, Colorado. "From what I have heard, their sales were even stronger this year."

Jones said recent retail spending has "gone off the charts." "Consumer confidence - that is propelling these record sales," Jones told Xinhua.

According to the MasterCard report, electronics and appliances increased 7.5 percent in 2017, the strongest growth in a decade. Home furniture, furnishings, and improvement areas popped 5.1 percent as well.

Ironically, the late season, positive retail news comes on the heels of one of the worst years in American business history.

Retail store closures are up 200 percent over last year, according to a FGRT (formerly Fung Global Retail & Technology) report released last week.

Charming Charlie, Perfumania, Crocs and GameStop were among the 6,985 store closure announcements made in 2017, according to FGRT, with more on the horizon.

Ascena Retail Group, for example, which owns names such as Dressbarn, Loft and Ann Taylor, could close as many as 667 stores by mid-2019, depending on how negotiations pan out with U.S. mall and shopping center landlords, CNBC reported Tuesday.

Other economists question the surging stock market as an accurate measure of economic stability.

"Many Americans are not in the stock market," Raphael Bostic, CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, told CNN's Richard Quest earlier this month.

"So it's a wealth effect that is really focused in a certain segment of the population, and a lot of folks are left out," Quest said.

On average, only 18.7 percent of U.S. taxpayers directly own stocks, a figure that does not include those who are in the market through employer-sponsored retirement plans, according to a Pew analysis of Census Bureau data.

"The benefits of roaring equities are not equally shared, and those at the top -- who have money to burn -- get the biggest payoff," Quest noted.

According to a MasterCard website, SpendingPulse is "the only macro economic indicator of U.S. industry performance based on actual near time retail spending data," and called itself "an industry standard."

MasterCard was not available to comment on the length of time SpendingPulse has been tracking these economic indicators. Enditem