Wal-Mart Inc intends to kick off the holiday season sales early this year by speeding up the opening of Christmas shops in it stores and slashing the prices of many popular gift items in an attempt to lure in the increasingly budget conscious customer.

On Wednesday, Wal-Mart announced that it will be cutting the prices of at least ten popular toys by $10 each in order to draw in shoppers for the most hectic gift-buying season of the year. The holiday-season initiative from Wal-Mart came after a survey revealed that consumers will start Christmas shopping earlier this year in order to make their holiday dollars go as far as possible. Among other incentives undertaken by Wal-Mart would be an ornament value pack for $5 to be sold at Christmas shops scheduled to open at Wal-Mart stores within the next ten days. Wal-Mart is a popular retailer among low-income groups and the 3500-stores chain regularly comes up with discounts and bargains in order to appeal to the budget-conscious customer.

The end of the year is busiest for the retail industry as customers shop for Thanksgiving, Christmas and the New Year. however due to the economic slow down in US this year, retailers expect to have lukewarm sales over the holiday season as consumers struggle with high food and energy costs, rising unemployment and a housing slump.

Automakers across the United States continued to suffer from the worst sales figures in the last fifteen years as restricted credit as well as high fuel prices kept both consumers and dealers away.

Sales figures for September revealed that industry wide sales of autos had fallen below the 1 million mark for the first time since 1993. According to the sales tracker Autodata, overall industry sales plunged by 27% to 964,873 vehicles last month. The decline in sales was broad-based with Japanese brands suffering similar double-digit percentage declines that had hit American automakers few months back. Overall sales of Asian auto brands fell by 31% while domestic automakers experienced a slide of more than 24% in sales.

This time the decline in auto sales is being blamed on the tightening of credit in the money market. Many consumers are unable to get loans to buy a car while a large number of dealers find their own credit cut off, causing extensive failures. A few months back US automakers had suffered significant drop in sales due to shooting prices of gasoline which had prompted most consumers to shun larger trucks and SUVs in favour of smaller and more fuel-efficient cars.

The dollar rose against the euro and seemed poised to touch a one-year high after the US Senate passed a $700 billion rescue package for the troubled finance sector.

The dollar climbed to $1.3963 per euro on October 2, at 7:45 a.m. in London from $1.4009 late Wednesday in New York. The latest rise was very near to the $1.3882 which the dollar had touched three weeks ago and which had been the strongest in almost a year since September 18, 2007. The dollar also registered a marginal rise against the yen, reaching 105.75 yen on October 2, from the last exchange rate of 105.71 yen.

The latest rise in dollar rates came in the wake of the passage of the finance rescue bill in the Senate which was seen as evidence of US acting faster than Europe to address the seizure in credit markets. A gain in the US currency was also believed to be the result of greater demand for dollar funding outside the country as banks have become increasingly reluctant to lend to each other. According to reports, foreign banks are paying hefty premium rates, almost the highest in a decade, to borrow dollars in the swaps market despite the Federal Reserve increasing funds to $620 billion for easier availability to other central banks,

US federal regulators have extended the ban against all short-selling in the shares of around 800 financial companies. The ban is expected to remain in place until October 17 or at least till the Congress passes the finance rescue bill.

On Wednesday, the Securities Exchange Commission announced that it was extending a ban on short selling of shares of several finance companies. The ban was to expire on Thursday but now it will remain in place latest till October 17. More probably, the ban on short selling will come to an end on the third business day after the enactment of the $700 billion finance rescue package which has already been passed by the US Senate and is expected to be placed before the House of Representatives at the end of this week for approval.

The unprecedented ban which was enforced by the Securities Exchange Commission on September 18 prohibited traders from short-selling shares of more than 800 financial companies. The measure was placed in order to shore up investor confidence which had been badly deflated in the wake of the market meltdown and the collapse of major Wall Street firms. Following the ban on short selling, the stock market had fluctuated wildly with the Dow Jones Industrial at one point plunging down by a record 778 points.

The US Senate approved an extensive bail- out plan for the beleaguered finance sector which is reported to be similar in many important ways to the one which was rejected by the House of Representatives on Monday.

The Senate passed the measure by a vote pf 74 to 25 after more than three hours of intense debate. Both presidential candidates, Sen. Barack Obama from the Democrat Party and Sen. John McCain from the Republican Party voted in favour of the bill.

The central feature of the Senate bill is the provision of $700 billion to buy up toxic assets of many financial institutions. Most of these assets are related to mortgages and have caused many firms to go bankrupt or led into acquisitions. By buying up the troubled assets, the rescue plan intends to free up the credit market so that banks start lending again.

However the Senate bill included many other provisions aimed at the Main Street as well. Most of these include popular tax measures aimed at providing relief to individual tax payers as well as small businesses. The add-ons are not surprising considering that it is an election year and have been passed keeping an eye on the voters.