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Shoppers queue up for Black Friday deals

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CIOL Bureau
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PRINCETON, N.J./MILWAUKEE, USA: U.S.shoppers searched for deals on high-definition televisions andpopular toys early on Friday, as retailers hoped that "BlackFriday" would kick off the best holiday shopping season in threeyears.

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While some stores were open on Thursdayand many retailers have offered "Black Friday" deals forweeks, shoppers still lined up late Thursday and early Friday for theannual day-after-Thanksgiving bargain hunt.

Black Friday is a term adopted byretailers to refer to the time of year when their businesses moveinto the black, or turns a profit. This year their aim is expected tobe about keeping sales momentum that has picked up modestly this yearas the economy recovers.

Shoppers were disappointed in some ofthe offers they could see, although they were still waiting in linefor hours before they could get in the door.

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"I'm looking at the TV and it sayssave $70 and I'm like, come on, you've got to be kidding," saidSanjay Patil, as he waited outside a Best Buy Co Inc in Princeton,New Jersey, along with about 50 other bargain hunters beforemidnight, even though the electronics retailer said stores open at 5a.m.

"If it's Black Friday, it has tobe 100 or 120 bucks savings minimum."

Others were anticipating the bargainsthey hoped to get. Nandini Ramkissoon, 19, staked out a spot near thestacks of $69 Blu-ray Disc players and $198 HDTVs set to go on saleat 5 a.m. (1000 GMT) inside a Wal-Mart in Secaucus, N.J.

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"Wal-Mart is pretty good becausethey're letting their customers inside before time, and it's reallycool," Ramkissoon said.

She and her parents arrived at 7 p.m.on Thursday, 10 hours early, to make sure they could get the TV theywanted.

Wal-Mart opened many of its U.S.discount stores on Thanksgiving Day and the doors stayed openovernight, a tactic it adopted after an employee was trampled todeath two years ago on "Black Friday."

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READY TO SHOP

Consumers, whose spending accounts forabout 70 percent of the U.S. economy, appeared to be in the mood toshop. On Wednesday, the government reported a 0.3 percent increase inpersonal spending in October, compared with the previous month.

Other signs that the economy might begaining steam include a two-year low in a closely watched measure ofjobless benefits.

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"I'm spending more this year thanlast year," said George Lum, a 30-year-old hospital worker, ashe sat in a lawn chair outside the Target Corp in Princeton, 4-1/2hours before its 4 a.m. opening. He was hoping to buy a 40-inchWestinghouse flatscreen LCD high-definition television for $298.

The National Retail Federation forecastthat as many as 138 million people would go to stores this weekend.The industry trade group also forecast a 2.3 percent increase insales during November and December, up from a 0.4 percent increase ayear earlier. Other forecasts call for even greater increases.

About 200 of those shoppers were linedup waiting to pay for their purchases at the Toys R Us inLawrenceville, New Jersey, early Friday, where Christine Barron hadboxes piled over her head after shopping for her two-year-old son,David.

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"I wanted to be one of the firstin line, but when I got here the line was already wrapped around theside of the building," Barron said.

Many retail stocks have rallied oninvestor hopes that the holiday season will be even better thanexpected. The Standard & Poor's retailing index rose 2.6 percenton Wednesday to its highest close in over three years.

But that could also leave stocksvulnerable to a sell-off if sales and profits do not meet thoseheightened expectations, said Wall Street Strategies analyst BrianSozzi.

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"We're set up for a fall,"Sozzi said. "We'll need strong earnings beats in

the fourth quarter."

Despite the hooplah over Black Friday,there are still four more weeks until Christmas, and with consumersshowing a tendency to do much of their shopping at the last minutebefore a holiday or event, analysts say that Black Friday is not astrong predictor for the season as a whole.

"Black Friday is different fromthe overall holiday season. Black Friday is an event," JamesRusso, vice president at market and consumer information monitor TheNielsen Co.

Nevertheless some shoppers wereplanning to put in a hard day of buying on Black Friday.

After Wal-Mart, Ramkissoon said herfamily plans to go to Sears and other stores most of the day beforereturning home to Brooklyn.

"It's like a whole day with nosleep," she said.