Jim Woods

Holidays Won't Revive Consumers

by Jim Woods   11/19/08

In another small positive, 14% said they are more confident in the U.S. stock market than they were 90 days ago -- a seven-point improvement from previously. Sixty-four percent said they're less confident -- a five-point improvement.

Even though the above findings show the slide in consumer sentiment may be stabilizing, there are other less encouraging signs.

Sixty-four percent of respondents reported dissatisfaction with their personal finances -- a whopping 15-point jump since September.

In addition, 76% said the current state of the economy is worse than they thought it would be 90 days ago -- a two-point increase from previously.

Retail Store Trends

For the sixth consecutive survey, Costco and Wal-Mart remain the overall retail leaders going forward.

Once again, it is traditional retailers -- like Sears (SHLD), Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY), Macy's (M), J.C. Penney (JCP) and Linens 'n Things -- that are showing the greatest weakness going forward.

While everyone knows that it's going to be a tough holiday spending season, these survey results show that we're in the midst of a massive consumer spending breakdown that now has a huge percentage of the U.S. public squeezing all they can out of every dollar.

And that includes gift shopping dollars. By a 12-to-1 margin (48% spending less money versus 4% spending more money) respondents reported they'll spend less money on holiday shopping this season than they did a year ago.

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Jim Woods is a Senior Editor for OptionsZone.com. To learn more about him, read his bio here.

The ChangeWave Alliance Research Network is a group of 20,000 highly qualified business, technology and medical professionals -- as well as early adopter consumers -- who work in leading companies of select industries. ChangeWave surveys its Network members weekly on a range of business and consumer topics, and converts the information into a series of proprietary quantitative and qualitative reports.