This morning, Polo Ralph Lauren (NYSE: RL) reported that its second-quarter earnings checked in at $178 million. This profit comes out to $1.75 per diluted share compared to $1.58 per diluted share for the same quarter last year. For the first six months of fiscal 2010, RL saw net income drop a percentage point, to $254 million. Per-share income totaled $2.51 per share, which was equal to those from a year ago.

RL Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Ralph Lauren, noted that the results "confirm the resilience and vitality of our strategy and demonstrate the superb execution of our management team." The company noted that results have exceeded its expectations for the first half and upped its sales projections for the remainder of the year.

For retailers, the crucial season is on its way. Blow the Christmas rush, and next year starts off on a miserable foot. Success, of course, also delivers a healthy dose of momentum -- and a little bit of wiggle room, important in what will continue to be a tough economy through at least the first half of next year. For booksellers, now contending with a new variable in the form of digital readers, e-readers will play a major role in defining the winners and losers. So far, it looks like Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) is off to a great start, and it will take some genuine innovation for the competition to chip away at its market share.

Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS), once the leading names in literary retail, is expected to release its own e-reader this week. It will look a bit like Amazon's Kindle, according to Reuters, but with a touch screen intended to make the reader's experience easier. The price hasn't been disclosed yet, but rumor has it that it'll be higher than the Kindle's $259. BKS is staying mum on its plans in this space. There are others in the space, as well, including IREX Technologies, which is a spinoff of Royal Philips Electronics (NYSE: PHG), Asutek (tk: tk) and a project called FirstPaper that has Hearst behind it.

It's going to get worse before it gets better, according to Stone & McCarthy Research. Early 2010 has "the more troublesome outlook," as the economy will have to walk on its own, the research firm says. This year, it's had a pair of crutches: tax credits for first-time home buyers and the cash-for-clunkers program. So, if the stimulus hasn't taken hold by the end of the year, the first quarter could be a bruiser.

The firm adds that "continued growth in aggregate demand" is needed, bringing the discussion back to consumer spending . . . which is where it will always land. We're likely to see the 3.2% growth rate from July through September drop to 2.4% at the end of the year because the crutches will have been gone. And, let's not forget that unemployment is expected to break the 10% level next year.

September same-store sales are rolling in this Thursday morning, and the news for the teen/tween retailers may hold some hope. Leading off the clothing genre is American Eagle Outfitters (NYSE: AEO), which posted perhaps the best news in the group. Of course, by best news I mean that AEO's sales didn't drop as much as people predicted.

The retailer had flat same-store sales in September, at the top end of its forecast range for a drop of 4.1% to flat sales. Thing is, these results will probably spur a bit of a rally for the stock, mainly because they weren't as bad as they could have been.

On Tuesday, discount retailer Target (NYSE: TGT) announced that it is going to do its best to stimulate the job market. The company announced that it will open 26 new stores, which will lead to 5,000 new jobs. These stores are set to open on October 11, and a majority of the stores will be of the general merchandise variety, with five of them full-grocery SuperTarget stores.

Target is making this move as the company is facing a tough market. A week ago, UBS cut the stock from "neutral" to "buy," citing a "tarnished image" for the retailer. Target saw quarterly profit fall for an eighth straight quarter after reporting a second-quarter drop. In addition, Target saw same-store sales fall 6.2%.

Bright and early on Wednesday morning, UBS issued a downgrade on discount retailer Target (NYSE: TGT). The brokerage cut TGT to Neutral from Buy, but kept its price target of $52. UBS attributed the downgrade to valuation and concerns surrounding a change in consumer spending and the impact of said spending on the company's recovery. This downgrade comes after the retailer hired a research firm to look into its reputation -- I guess they should have checked on their reputation with brokerages.

Shares of the retailer are lower this morning thanks to the news, but there is reason to believe the retailer could enjoy a prosperous holiday shopping season. Hear me out, Target offers quality products at a reasonable price, making the retailer a good spot to find great deals. What's more, Target is constantly offering sales and coupons, making the deals even sweeter. These discounts are exactly what people will look for when trying to fill out Santa's list.

As we continue to question whether or not America is emerging from the recession, one indicator that a lot of people are paying attention to is consumer confidence. Unfortunately, consumer confidence fell unexpectedly this month, as more and more people are worried about their jobs.

According to the New York-based Conference Board, its consumer confidence index dipped to 53.1 in September, down from 54.5 in August.

The dip ends a three month streak, and is being blamed mostly on Americans concerns over job security. The drop raises concerns over any economic rebound, and comes at a bad time for retailers that are gearing up for the upcoming holiday season.

Not long ago, I found myself in Sears (NASDAQ: SHLD) buying a video game. While at the point of sale -- which was a nightmare, not because of anything related to the checkout process, but because a jerk cut in front of me and, after the completion of his transaction, proceeded to deluge the poor associate at the register with a bunch of random, techno nerd-talk that said associate clearly couldn't care any less about (but I digress) -- I noticed something pertaining to a Christmas Club card. Sounded interesting, but I didn't pay much attention to the selling material.

Well, last night I was checking out some articles at Brandweek.com, and lo and behold, I came across this one discussing the holiday card. You know how Christmas Clubs work at banks, correct? Same principle applies here. In a simple nutshell, you get the plastic, you store funds on it, and then you can access those funds later on in the season to acquire presents. It's basically like a gift card that you use for budgeting purposes. Not only is Sears involved in this, but so is Kmart. And there's a promotion going on that's mentioned in the article where you can earn a nominal amount of bonus money on it. I don't know the details; I would suggest checking with Sears/Kmart for further information.

We all know that the current economic slowdown was bound to hurt holiday spending, and today we get news of just how much an impact it had on online shopping, as comScore announced that shoppers spent 3% less this year compared with 2007.

The report was based on spending between November 1 and December 23, and showed that consumers spent $25.5 billion online, compared with $26.3 billion in the same period last year, another clear signal that people are cutting their spending because they are worried about the economy.

A bright spot in the report did show that Cyber Monday, the Monday immediately following Black Friday, was the second biggest day ever for online spending, with an increase of 15% in sales from last year, to $846 million in sales.

Stock markets are poised to open higher as investors -- those that are not taking a holiday break -- reacted favorably to news that the government will allow GMAC LLC to become a bank holding company, giving the finance arm of General Motors Corp. (NYSE:GM) the opportunity to qualify for the government's $700 billion rescue fund.

That news will be tempered by data indicating the holiday shopping season was godawful. Retail sales fell between 5.5 percent and 8 percent compared with last year, according to SpendingPulse. Without auto or gas sales, the decline is between 2 percent and 4 percent, according to the Associated Press. Sales plunged as much as 25 percent in November alone.

Retailers are hoping to lure customers into their stores today with early-morning bargains. Whether that brings the companies some late Christmas cheer remains to be seen. With rising unemployment and falling home prices, many people skipped the holiday season entirely because they could not afford it. Many who could afford presents probably were not feeling very merry.

Other factors that may move the market include oil prices. Prices rose above $36 as investors bet that members of OPEC would stick to their production cuts even as demand continues to fall amdist the economic slowdown. The gain may short-lived.

"All the economic figures are pointing to demand destruction, and that's not going to change soon," said Christoffer Moltke-Leth, head of sales trading for Saxo Capital Markets in Singapore, in an interview with the AP. "There seems to be no end to the bad news from economic data."

While this is a week when many of us are celebrating and enjoying some much needed time with friends and family, things are not looking so cheerful over at eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) as slow sales and low traffic are hurting sales on the popular online auction site (subscription required).

This is the first holiday season for the company under its new CEO, John Donahoe, and things are definitely not looking too jolly. According to research firm comScore Inc., the site has been losing a lot of valuable traffic to its competitors, such as Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) that have more fixed-price products for consumers to purchase, an area where eBay is still lagging.

For the period of November 3 through December 14, a time when many of us were busy spending hours online researching those perfect presents to hand out this holiday, eBay was just not getting the hits that it usually does, and traffic was down by 16% from the same period last year. In contrast, Amazon was enjoying a modest increase in traffic of 6% during the same time frame.

Paul B. Toms Jr., chairman, CEO and president of Hooker Furniture (NASDAQ: HOFT) gave a less-than-inspiring business outlook the other day in the company's press release announcing fiscal 2009 third-quarter results.

"Over the course of the last several months, the economy has worsened with continued business closings, cutbacks and layoffs across many industries, including the home furnishings industry. Consumer confidence levels are at historical lows. With continued instability in the real estate, financial and credit markets, prospects for a near-term economic recovery appear dim."

Toms believes that the consumer will stay on the sidelines until the real estate and financial markets stabilize and some improvement in credit availability and consumer confidence materializes, which could be another nine to 12 months.

Predictably the shares sold off following the news. After all, even if entertainment units, office, dining, bedroom, accent, occasional and leather upholstered furniture for the home are high on people's holiday wish list this year, these items are likely not within their financial reach.

But there's more to this story than meets the eye.

With two young children I am reacquainting myself with the holiday cartoon classics. One of my favorites is A Charlie Brown Christmas, where Charlie is ridiculed for the half-dead tree with a few scraggly branches that he picks out a for the holiday production.

We are all living the Charlie Brown Christmas this year, and making due with less. Most people are cutting back on their holiday shopping as they adjust to the slowing economy and higher unemployment.

Frankly, it is a nice change of pace. That said, our reduced spending is, in a sad way, making matters worse.

Companies are retreating en masse, with many reducing or eliminating guidance. It's brutal out there.

The latest victim is video game maker Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS).

Although there is no must-have buy this season, video games were thought to be attractive for those looking for cheap entertainment. Apparently, that's not the case.

Yesterday, ERTS issued a warning to investors. The company said it now expects to miss already reduced guidance for the fiscal year ending in March. Things have gotten so bad that ERTS is not offering any specifics.

America's Research Group, a consumer research firm, lowered its 2008 holiday retail sales forecast. ARG now believes retail sales will fall 3.5 percent from last year. Previously, ARG predicted just a 1 percent decline.

Chief Executive Britt Beemer told the New York Times, "When you look at the numbers, you see that over the weekend consumers were frugal and focused, staying within their budgets and concentrating on the deals and advertised specials."

Nineteen percent of the shoppers surveyed by ARG said they had already finished 90 percent of their shopping. That's up from 13.6 percent last year. About 63 percent of people polled said that they would finish their shopping in three days or less. That leaves retailers with the prospect of sluggish sales between now and the end of December when many retailers look for holiday sales to get them back into the black.

Beemer told that Times that shoppers were disciplined. They made lists and stuck to them. He found that 70.2 percent of shoppers told him that they stayed within budgets.

Electronics giant Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) is not only suffering from the worst consumer holiday spending meltdown in years, but its beleaguered customer base is now fleeing to discount retailers like Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) and Costco (NASDAQ: COST).

So it appears Best Buy is getting hit with a double whammy, according to a November ChangeWave Alliance Research Network survey of 2,763 U.S. consumers.

The massive slowdown in consumer electronics spending this holiday season -- which the survey shows to be the weakest ever -- is a far cry from the surge that normally occurs at this time of year.

Only 19% of consumers said they'll spend more on electronics during the next 90 days compared with 43% who said less -- a net 40 points worse than a year ago.