Black Friday: Consumer Spending Update

Consumer spending was healthy in many of Seattle's retail stores
today. Most notably, and surprising was the line out the door at
Bellevue Square's Express. Other busy retailers included MNG Mango,
Canadian retailers Aritzia and Lululemon Athletica (NASDAQ:LULU), as well as department stores Nordstrom (NYSE:JWN) and Macy's (NYSE:M). Gap(NYSE:GPS) was (not surprisingly) practically empty, with only a few scattered customers waffling around
in the men's section with the cash register completely empty. Retailer
Best Buy (NYSE:BBY) had a respectable crowd, however we were largely disappointed with the 'deals' offered. Overall, we thought that higher end clothing retailers fared better with the upscale consumer crowd than electronics or lower end products.

--Update

Another notable retailer this weekend was GameStop (NYSE:GME), with its store packed full of shoppers. Recently, they have been on a pretty heavy run with so many popular video games being released and pre-sold by the store. I wouldn't be surprised if this momentum continues through the holidays.