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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (516817)	12/29/2003 5:47:16 PM
From: Original Mad Dog	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

And why doesn't the Wall Street report include data on cash sales? Because it's not available yet. This is the first business day after the holiday season. Mastercard traditionally announces its figures at this time. Mastercard sales volume is one component of retail sales. When that component goes up, it means that one of two things has happened: Either there was a significant change in the percentage of overall retail purchases made on MasterCard versus other forms of payment (such as Visa or cash), or the retail sales figures for this year were up overall about the same amount as the MasterCard sales were up. That isn't lying with statistics. It's extrapolating from a data subset to make predictions about what the figures will be for the complete set (all retail sales). In past years this MasterCard figure has been fairly close in predicting overall sales figures, because in past years the percentage of total Christmas season sales made on MasterCard has not changed dramatically. If the percentage of total retail purchases on Mastercard increased this holiday season, then the Mastercard report would not translate into an equivalent increase in overall retail sales. If the percentage of total retail purchases on Mastercard decreased this holiday season, then the Mastercard report would actually understate the increase in overall retail sales. Are there any specific reasons why the Mastercard percentage of total retail sales would have increased? Maybe a little. The same article states that online sales showed a larger jump than brick and mortar sales. Online sales are far likelier to be on a credit card. Mastercard's overall sales may have trended upward at a rate faster than overall retail sales as well. But those two factors would not account for such a large jump by themselves. I think it is appropriate to draw the preliminary conclusion from the Mastercard figures that retail sales were healthy during the holiday season.