AP: Nation's Retailers Have Glum Weekend
ThisIsMoney: High Street gloom as sales flop

The weekend before Christmas, traditionally one of the key periods in the retailing year, turned out to be a bit of a bust in bricks and mortar stores this year. Interestingly, both discounters and luxury goods retailers did quite well, while the vast middle of the market did very poorly.

While some were tempted to blame the increased terror alert warning that came this weekend, professional retail associations say that this was unlikely to have any effect that would have registered in the sales figures. The National Retail Federation is sticking to its earlier prediction of an increase of almost six percent over last year's sales. With Christmas falling on Thursday, there's still plenty of time to make up a small deficit.

Similarly, in Britain, weekend sales were off six percent from last year, according to consumer site ThisIsMoney.