Retail Shopping & Mortgage Applications: Dismal

Don’t worry, Christmas will be just fine – even though we’re missing 1/5th of our customers!

BTW around here, and I recognize this is pure anecdote, it’s been utterly dead with one exception — WalMart, where it looks like a first-of-the-month.

Not the holidays.

Yeah, traffic is “up from normal” but it’s not mobbed.

And there are still enough bicycles chained together out front — overflow — to give every kid in the local area who doesn’t have one a new bike.

Comscore numbers are down too.

One other (anecdotal) note — as of yesterday every Christmas tree lot I drove by was jam-stuffed with trees.  Normally all you’d have left by now is the stragglers — the infamous “Charlie Brown” leftover.  And those trees, as of 12:01 tomorrow, will go from being worth $50 each (or more) to having a net present value of their BTUs in a bonfire.

Earnings season, which I remind you begins as soon as the calendar flips, should be interesting.

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