“The retail apparel holiday shopping season is always promotional - but this year the flood gates are open and we anticipate a promotional battlefield.

“Weak back-to-school shopping numbers followed by a government shutdown and now cracks in ObamaCare have led to soft mall traffic thus far and high inventories as we head into the holiday season. Our studies indicate a wallet-share shift from apparel to bigger-ticket, non-apparel purchases.

“The fashion consensus last year centered on a kaleidoscope of color - this comes along once in a decade. This year, we are back to the norm of scattered fashion consensus; shoppers are finding fewer reasons to buy this year versus last, according to our preliminary focus-group research.

“A record short number of days in the 2013 holiday shopping season (26 shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the fewest possible days), versus a record long season in 2012 (32 day shopping period last year as Thanksgiving fell on Nov. 22).”

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BMO Capital Markets