With the economy strong and consumer confidence high, economists are looking for as much as a 4-4.5% increase in Holiday spending in 2017. Deloitte said retail sales excluding autos and gasoline for Dec. will hit $1.04-1.05 trillion with e-commerce sales rising 18-21% to $111-114 billion. Retail sales growth in Q2 at 4.3% has handily outperformed GDP growth at 2.6% and a similar trend prevailed in Q1, which indicates consumers are active. A big part of that is the growth in disposable personal income, which was up 2% last year and translated into a similar gain in sales, but this year, ... Log in to view full article.