Plus: U.S. Growth Revised Down, Durable Goods Orders Dip and Jobless Claims Inch Up.

Holiday Shopping Season Kicks Off
On the heels of Black Friday — not to mention National Small Business Saturday — the ceremonial kickoff to the holiday shopping season is in full swing.

A record number of Americans plan to shop online today to take advantage of retailers’ one-day-only Cyber Monday deals and free shipping offers. Approximately 122.9 million Americans plan to shop on Cyber Monday, up from the 106.9 million in 2010, according to a survey by Shop.org, a division of the National Retail Federation (NRF).

About eight in 10 (78.4 percent) online retailers surveyed will have special promotions today.

“With promotions like flash sales that only last an hour or deep discounts on selected lines, shoppers know they can win big on Cyber Monday,” Vicki Cantrell, executive director of Shop.org, said in a statement.

While the majority of Cyber Monday shoppers will make purchases from their home computer (87.4 percent, or 107 million people), more people will also shop from work this year (15.9 percent, up from 12.1 percent last year). Holiday shoppers who find time is not on their side often shop online over their lunch hours at work or at the end of the business day. A separate Shop.org survey estimated that nearly 76 million Americans would shop from work at some point during the holiday season.

For consumers and retailers alike, there’s one small problem: The majority (60 percent) of chief information officers recently interviewed by Robert Half Technology said their companies block access to online shopping sites. That’s up from 48 percent last year. Another 23 percent said they allow access but monitor activity for excessive use.

“With an increasing number of firms blocking access to shopping sites, many employees may turn to mobile devices to shop at the office,” according to John Reed, executive director of Robert Half.

Indeed, NRF found that the number of shoppers planning to use their smart phones or other mobile devices during the holiday season continues to climb. In just two years, the number of Americans saying they would use their mobile device to shop on Cyber Monday has nearly tripled, from 3.6 million in 2009 to 17.8 million in 2011. Compared to last year alone, the number of people using their mobile devices on Cyber Monday has more than doubled (7.3 million in 2010).

For on-the-job shoppers, Reed advises exercising caution. “Spending excessive time on non-business activities while at work raises a red flag for employers,” Reed says.

U.S. Growth Revised Down for Q3
The U.S. economy grew at a 2 percent pace in the third quarter, down from an initial estimate of 2.5 percent, the U.S. Department of Commerce reported last week. The downward revision is due primarily to an $8.5 billion fall in inventories after surging $39.1 billion in the second quarter, as well as a contraction in business investment, which rose at a 14.8 percent rate instead of an initially reported 16.3 percent.

“Many businesses reduced their stockpiles over the summer, probably because they did not anticipate the strength of consumer and business spending,” the Associated Press explains. “A decline in inventories is not always a bad sign. Economists believe this could lead to stronger growth in the current quarter, if businesses foresee more demand and restock their shelves.”

Strong export growth offset the drag from inventories. Exports rose 4.3 percent instead of 4 percent as originally reported. Consumer spending rose 2.3 percent in the July-September period, down from an original reading of 2.4 percent.

Excluding inventories, the economy climbed 3.6 percent in Q3 after expanding 1.6 percent in the prior quarter.

“While the revision was below economists’ expectations for a 2.5 percent growth pace, the composition of the GDP report, especially still-firm consumer spending and the first drop in businesses’ inventories since the fourth quarter of 2009 set the platform for a stronger economic performance this quarter,” Reuters reports. “Data so far suggest the fourth-quarter growth pace could exceed 3 percent, which would be the fastest in 18 months.”

Durable Goods Orders Decrease in October
New orders for U.S. durable goods decreased 0.7 percent in October, following a 1.5 percent drop in September, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Commerce last week. However, excluding the often-volatile transportation category, new orders actually rose 0.7 percent.

The overall value of durable goods orders last month fell by $1.4 billion to total $197.7 billion, marking the second consecutive monthly decline. The largest losses were in transportation equipment, which dropped 4.8 percent. Minus the transportation sector, durable goods performed well in several key categories last month, as new orders for primary metals increased 3 percent and orders for machinery climbed 1.6 percent.

“Data on durables often undergo sharp revisions, so economists tend to focus on longer-term trends,” MarketWatch notes. “Over the past three months, orders have fallen an average of 0.7 percent, but they’ve risen an average of 0.4 percent if the transportation sector is omitted.”

Meanwhile, durable goods shipments rose 1.3 percent to total $203 billion in October, following a 0.5 percent decline in September. Excluding transportation equipment, shipments increased 5.2 percent last month.

Despite these positive signs, there was also evidence of instability, as orders for core capital goods (excluding defense and transportation) — an important gauge of future business spending and demand — fell 1.8 percent in October, the largest monthly decline since January.

“The October drop in core capital goods, non-defense products excluding aircraft, was expected to be a temporary setback,” the Associated Press reports. “This category has been surging this year, spurred by tax breaks that are allowing companies to write-off their investments all in one year as long as the purchases are made before the end of 2011. That has provoked a rush by companies to take advantage of this tax break, which Congress passed in an effort to spur the sluggish economy.”

Jobless Claims Increase
New initial jobless claims rose slightly in the latest week reported, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Seasonally adjusted unemployment claims for the week ending November 19 rose to 393,000, an increase of 2,000 from the previous week. Economists polled by MarketWatch had expected claims to fall to 390,000 in the latest week.

However, the four-week moving average, a more accurate indicator of longer-term employment trends, fell by 3,250 to 394,250.

“The number of new applications for unemployment benefits have signaled stabilization in recent weeks amid a tough job market where the unemployment rate is at 9 percent and economic growth too anemic to spur job creation,” Agence France-Presse reports. “The four-week moving average of initial jobless claims, which helps to smooth out week-to-week volatility, fell for the fourth straight week, to a level only 1.5 percent higher than the lowest point of the year, in March.”

Jobless claims typically need to remain below the 400,000 mark for labor market conditions to recover and the national unemployment rate to begin to drop.

“The economy is growing but not fast enough to generate many jobs. The economy expanded at a 2 percent annual rate in the July-September quarter, the government estimated Tuesday. That was down from an earlier estimate of 2.5 percent,” the Associated Press notes. “Growth would need to be more than twice that pace to significantly reduce unemployment, economists say.”