Spinning Black Friday Retail Sales

[RedEarth]

A few things you can count on every year around this time:

Sales data for Black Friday will be touted by biased interest groups. They are invariably have an upside bias;
Headline writers will get it wrong
Survey data will be taken as the equivalent of actual sales;
Strong forecasts will be subsequently proven wrong;
Such is the current situation with the Black Friday sales data, with reports still trickling in from around the country.

The WSJ goes for a hat trick of errors, starting with this article’s headline:

• Holiday Shopping Off to Strong Start

What’s wrong with this? First, as opposed to actual sales data, they rely on a “survey of 3,370 shoppers, the National Retail Federation estimated shoppers spent an average of $372.57 over the weekend, up 7.2% over last year’s $347.55.” The National Retail Federation is hardly the objective group you want crafting (or hiring 3rd parties to create) survey questions; 2nd, we know that humans are terrible at forecasting their own behaviors. Historically, their projections have had little correlation with their actual spending patterns. And third, the headline is belied by the details contained in the article. (MarketWatch was no better)

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2008/12/spinning-black-friday-retail-sales/