Wall Street’s bloodbath is coming just in time for Christmas. That means little holiday cheer this year, as office parties are slashed and shoppers skimp on gifts at the greatest rate in 17 years.

Holiday sales for 2008 are expected to grow an anemic 1.5% from 2007, according to the latest projections from TNS Retail Forward, a market research firm that specializes in retail.

That would make the upcoming holiday shopping season the worst since 1991, a period when the economy was slowly emerging from a recession. Even the 2001 Christmas season, coming on the heels of the Sept. 11 attacks and a general slowdown that followed the bursting of the Internet bubble, saw a 2.2% gain in sales growth from the previous year.

Read More

Share This