Holiday Sales Not So Bright

The Commerce Department said sales rose to a seasonally adjusted $400.6 billion, an advance of 6.5% from the prior year. Holiday sales — defined as November and December retail sales excluding autos, gasoline, food services and non-store outlets — grew 4.1% from last year, according to calculations by IHS Global Insight.

Ahead of the report, economists surveyed by MarketWatch had expected monthly sales to rise by 0.3% from November. Sales rose an upwardly revised 0.4% in November, compared with a 0.2% increase originally reported. Sales were also revised up slightly in October.

The sales data are seasonally adjusted, but they aren’t adjusted for price changes.

As often happens with data on retail sales issued immediately after the holidays, the government’s statistics didn’t bear out the conventional wisdom.

“Apparently, all those reports of a robust holiday shopping season were made by people too much into the holiday spirits as retail sales did not surge in December,” said Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors, Inc.