November 26, 2007 | posted by Michael Baxter in IABN |

Phew, at last some good news from the US.

Friday, as you may know, was Black Friday. No, this name does not refer to a day of disaster, rather it was the day back after Thanksgiving, a day always known as Black Friday. It’s a big shopping day, so all eyes turned to the US; would yet more evidence be provided of the dire straits of the US economy?

And the answer was no. In fact, according to ShopperTrak RCT Corp, sales jumped 8.3 per cent on last year.

In fact what we seem to have seen on Friday was more shoppers, but with each one spending a little less. According to the National Retail Federation, 147 million people hit US stores; this was up 4.8 per cent from last year. Individual shoppers, however, spent 3.5 per cent less per person.