Four Factors to Note in Holiday Shopping Results

As Sunday night rolled into Monday morning, investors have been treated to post-mortems on the holiday shopping weekend. While The Wall Street Journal declared in a headline this morning "Holiday Shopping Off to Strong Start," the Associated Press offered this take: "Holiday shopping season off to modest start."

So which headline paints an accurate portrait of the weekend's retail results?

Neither, at least according to a headline in The New York Times. The Gray Lady told us that while the long weekend -- which begins on the "Black Friday" following Thanksgiving Day and launches the holiday shopping season -- might have looked surprisingly strong, it was actually an illusion: "Deep Discounts Draw Shoppers, but Not Profits."

So considering these views and CBS News' remark that "like an unexpected present under the Christmas tree, retailers received a pleasant surprise from shoppers on this bellwether weekend," where should savvy investors turn for an accurate viewpoint? And why all of the confusion?

Well, first off -- because many in the business media focused on the tragic story of a Wal-Mart employee who was trampled and killed by a crowd of zealous shoppers, few reports included the four elements of the holiday shopping weekend that investors need to weigh.

They Just Don't Get Retail!

If you are not getting these four elements in your holiday shopping coverage, do the right thing: crumple the coverage and throw it onto the Yule log. Weighing these four factors (two positive, two negative) reveals that the holiday selling season showed some needed signs of life but overall was fairly typical of a recessionary period. Given the degree of panic in the business media about the coming Great Depression II, this passes, overall, as good news.