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Even online spending, once a bright spot in retailing, has been hit hard by economic woes in recent months. ComScore, an Internet research company, reported Sunday that online spending was up a modest 2 percent for the combined Thanksgiving Day and Friday, compared with the year-ago period.

"I've cut my budget in half. I usually have a spending limit of $50 per person, but this year, it's $25," said Laura Bentley, of Miami, who was at the local Dolphin Mall on Saturday, her first day of holiday shopping.

Manno and Poun Sam of Houston, who had just purchased some toys, including a Crayola coloring game and a stuffed animal, at a Wal-Mart store in suburban Houston on Saturday, said they were trying to stay within a $500 budget.

"We're not buying anything fancy," said Manno Sam, an assembly-line worker. "We can't afford it."

New York-based retail consultant Walter Loeb said he expects sales for the weekend to be below year-ago levels, based on discussions this weekend with key executives from discounters and department stores.

But he added, "It wasn't as bad as some feared. ... People were buying but they bought cheap, and the results were not as good."

Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at NPD Group, a market research group, who had a network of analysts at 53 mall locations across the country this weekend, said that "the holiday started off with some promise but quickly moved to concern."

"It could have been a disaster, but it wasn't," he said, noting that he estimates that the weekend's sales were at best even with the same holiday weekend a year ago.

Karen MacDonald, a spokeswoman at Taubman Centers Inc., which operates 24 malls in 11 states, said that based on a sampling of malls, business on Friday was anywhere from unchanged to up mid-single digits. But on Saturday, sales were unchanged to down slightly.

"Friday was encouraging, but Saturday wasn't as good as we hoped," she said.

But Toys R Us Chief Executive Jerry Storch reported on Sunday that customer traffic was at least as strong this past weekend as the Thanksgiving weekend a year ago, and said he was "definitely pleased with sales."

Geoffrey Webb, director of advertising and sales promotions at K-B Toys Inc., said that sales for the weekend were equal or slightly better than last year.

"We are very encouraged by the response," he said.

A more complete sales picture of how the Thanksgiving shopping weekend fared won't be known until Thursday when the nation's retailers report November same-store sales, or sales at stores opened at least a year.

According to preliminary figures released Saturday by ShopperTrak RCT, a research firm that tracks total retail sales at more than 50,000 outlets, sales rose 3 percent to $10.6 billion on Friday from the Black Friday a year ago.

ShopperTrak RCT is expected to release data for the combined Friday and Saturday period on Monday. Bill Martin, ShopperTrak's co-founder, said he wasn't sure if the momentum was sustained through the rest of the weekend.

The day after Thanksgiving -- dubbed Black Friday because it historically was the day when a surge of shoppers helped stores break into profitability for the full year -- has been fading in importance.

In recent years, merchants have been pushing earlier the sales and expanded hours that were typically reserved for that day. This year, in a desperate bid to pull in shoppers, stores were even more aggressive, offering discounts of up to 70 percent in the days leading to the weekend, and widening those price cuts for a broader array of merchandise for the early morning deals.

Aside from the economy, however, Black Friday's early morning madness has also lost some of its steam because of the abundance of bargains that shoppers can find on the Web. Cohen also noted there's less frenzy this year because, with the exception of some isolated hard-to-find hits like Fisher-Price's Elmo Live and Nintendo's "Wii Fit" exercise game, there isn't a particular gift that's a "big standout."

While Black Friday isn't a predictor of the holiday season, it does act as a barometer of consumers' willingness to spend. Complicating matters is a shorter buying season -- 27 days between Black Friday and Christmas -- instead of 32 last year, putting more pressure on retailers.

Clearly economic woes played a role in how shoppers bought this weekend. K-B's Webb noted that consumers were focusing on bargains like a $30 My Happy Family dollhouse, which offered furniture and figures, as part of the retailer's supervalue program. Taubman's MacDonald said that practical items did well, like cookware and small home appliances, but clothing and electronics also were popular because they were deeply discounted.

The managers of Dillard's and Macy's departments stores at Greenspoint Mall in north Houston both said weekend crowds met expectations, though shoppers seemed to be more bargain-hungry than in recent years.

At the mall's Macy's, one of a dozen in the Houston area, clothing, jewelry and home items -- but not high-end brands -- were selling well, said manager Ron Misrack.

"People seem to be going to promotional items," Misrack said. "If you look at our books, you can see the specials, and people seem to be going for those items."

AP Business Writers John Porretto in Houston and David Fischer in Miami and AP Retail Writer Ashley M. Heher contributed in Chicago contributed to this report.

(This version CORRECTS SUBS graf 3 to correct to midnight on Thursday. AP Video.)

"It looks like we may have talked ourselves into an overly gloomy outlook for this year's holiday sales," said Peter Cohan of Peter Cohan & Associates. "Many of those who fear they'll lose their jobs may decide to enjoy the holidays while they still can. Next year might not be as good."

Volume at the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq are expected to return to normal levels with traders returning to work after the holiday. Some give-back is expected after last week's big run, but investors might also build on those gains if they're able to get a positive reading on consumer spending and get past any negative economic reports.

Wall Street will also be skittish about financial stocks. Though last week's $20 billion government-backed rescue of Citigroup Inc. helped encourage buying in the sector, any sign that another major bank or financial company is in trouble would quickly unnerve investors.

Stocks ended a holiday-shortened week with some of the steepest gains in 75 years. Major indexes have locked in some big advances, including 16.9 percent for the Dow Jones industrial average and 19.1 percent for the Standard & Poor's 500 index, since the rally began Nov. 21.

It was the first time the Dow rose for five consecutive sessions since July 2007, and the biggest five-session percentage gain since Aug. 8, 1932. For the S&P 500, it was the first five-day string of gains since July 2007, and the largest five-day percentage gain since March 16, 1933.

"Stocks were overdue for a bounce," said Stephen Leeb, president of New York-based Leeb Capital Management. "Increasing evidence that the federal government will do whatever is necessary to stave off deflation and depression have helped fuel the advance, which started with news of Tim Geithner's nomination as the next Treasury Secretary and continued with the rescue of Citigroup."

The rally helped to offset the devastating performance of major indexes in October, a month where $1 trillion of shareholder wealth was wiped out of the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 composite index. That reflects the value of nearly all U.S. stocks.

Analysts expect the early part of this week will be dominated by retail sales reports, especially any data that zeros in on how much Americans spent in the first days of the holiday shopping season.

The reason that sales data is so crucial to Wall Street is because consumer spending accounts for more than two-thirds of the U.S. economy. Even modest spending over the Thanksgiving weekend -- anything that does not fall far below already dour forecasts -- could give the markets a boost.

According to preliminary figures released by RCT ShopperTrak, a research firm that tracks total retail sales at more than 50,000 outlets, sales rose 3 percent to $10.6 billion on Black Friday.

The trade group is expected to release data for the combined Friday and Saturday period on Monday. However, ShopperTrak's co-founder Bill Martin said he wasn't sure if the momentum was sustained through the weekend.

Its not just holiday sales data that will be on the minds of investors. There's still a number of key economic reports due to be released this week that Wall Street will use to glean any evidence of how deep the recession might be.

The Labor Department will release its report on non-farm payrolls on Friday, an important indicator to determining the economy's health. Economists polled by Thomson Reuters expect another 316,000 jobs were lost during November, which would be the largest decline since May 1980. There was a drop of 240,000 jobs in October.

The government will report weekly jobless claims on Thursday for a fresher glimpse into how many Americans are working.

Wall Street will also pore over a report on Monday from the Institute for Supply Management on manufacturing in November. The group will also release its index of non-manufacturing activity on Wednesday.

The Fed will release its monthly beige book, an assessment of business conditions in different regions of the country. The report for November could add to investors' angst if it reads anything like the previous month's report, where policymakers found that the economy continued to slow as financial and credit market problems took a turn for the worse.

The central bank's report on Oct. 15 supported the market's belief that difficulties in obtaining loans have choked growth in wide swaths of the economy. Given last week's big rally, many investors will be trying to determine if the market -- which is a forward-looking gauge of the economy -- might have hit or be close to finding a bottom.

Year to date, the Dow is down 33.4 percent, while the S&P 500 is off 39 percent and the Nasdaq is down 42.1 percent.

"If there was ever a year we'd like to forget from a financial standpoint, it's this one," Leeb said. "But we've made progress from the depths of the financial crisis in September, when it seemed that putting cash under a mattress seemed like the best plan."

AP Retail Writer Anne D'Innocenzio contributed to this report.

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