Black Friday: Early Holiday Retail Report

There were mixed retail signals on Black Friday.  The WSJ ($$) estimates that Friday sales nationwide increased 6% from the previous year, reaching $8.96 billion. Sales in electronics products seemed particularly hot. But not all was good news. Wal-Mart saw the weakest monthly sales in more than 10 years, despite bold discounting. Reuters observed that heavy discounts and "door-buster" promotions sent more than 140 million U.S. shoppers to stores during the three-day kickoff to holiday shopping, but overall customer traffic had fallen from last year. The data is still coming in.

Photo uploaded by Matt McGee