According to CNN Money,

Mall traffic drops dramatically in the final run-up to Christmas, and chain stores see only modest sales increase.

Now there are 2 obvious things that come to mind when I read that line. Either people just aren’t buying as much as they have before or more people are shifting from shopping in-store to online. For me, I still have continued making all my purchases in-store. I think it is easier and quicker then online.

Just a month ago, there were numbers posted that showed strong early holiday sales; however, according to those stores the numbers have drastically stalled. Again there are 3 ways you can look at this. First, more people needed to rely on deals so they got all their shopping done early when the Thanksgiving sales were going on or people just flat ran out of money and couldn’t afford to buy anything else. Also, with a late Thanksgiving, many people might end up last minute shopping.

As you can see, people can easily read these numbers many different ways and, with the addition of the fed rate cut, it can be seen why the market is so volatile right now.