As I have told you many times in the past few months, I knew that the stocks that I owned were going down. A lot of my portfolio relies on the consumer action for it to see stock prices soar. I have retail store holdings (like Best Buy & Circuit City) that usually only see profits in the non-business markets. Today a story in Wall Street Journal directly pointed out what I was saying in the past (I can�t link to the article I am referring to because you need a subscription. Sorry!)

�Forecasters are more divided than usual over what kind of holiday shopping season retailers will see this year, with predicted gains for overall sales ranging from a 2.5% hiccup to a gangbusters 7.5% advance.� I�m more on the optimistic side of the argument. A lot of those retail giants receive over 50% of their yearly revenue in less than two months of selling.

�Depending on who is counting and how they do the tallying, shoppers are expected to spend anywhere from about $250 billion to $786.6 billion.� That�s a lot of money to be made during just a few months. Last year a huge change happened in the retail market. Increase of sales happened without products moving off the shelf.

Who�s to blame for that phenomenon? Gift cards! Gift Cards stole a huge amount of revenue from products. This really doesn�t change the profits of large companies; it just changes their selling strategy. �Thirty-eight percent of the value of gift cards purchased in the 2005 holiday shopping period were redeemed in January 2006.�

What does this mean to you? If you have extra month laying around after your holiday budget is done, buy some stock so you can actually MAKE money while shopping.