Bloomberg asked some economists about how the retail market would fare during November, but consumers did not put in as much money as some were expecting. The median expected gain by the economists was a .6% increase, however sales only went up .2% which was the bottom of the range of their expected outcomes. The article said that though sales in areas of the economy associated with gifts went up, the other areas went down as a sign that many consumers were making a choice on what to spend on rather than just spending more.  The article quoted economist Ryan Wang as saying, “Sales are growing, but they just aren’t accelerating.” Some more numbers from the article are:

• There was a 2.1% increase of sales at electronics stores and a .5 percent increase at clothing stores
• Unemployment fell to 8.6%
• October and September outperformed their growth expectations by .1 and .2%