Boxing Day sales lifted stocks worldwide

In Wall Street, apparel stores shares were found lagging the

market, reported 'Forbes'. As a whole, the subsector dropped by about 1.1 percent, led down by Michael Kors Holdings Limited (KORS), trading lower by about 3.5 percent and Hot Topic (HOTT), which slipped over 2.6 percent.

Meanwhile, Nike traded down 1.99 percent on Wednesday, hitting 51.75 dollars. The stock has a 1-year low of 85.10 dollars and a 1-year high of 114.81. The company has a market cap of 23.210 billion dollars and a price-to-earnings ratio of 11.88. Sterne Agee reissued their neutral rating on shares of Nike (NYSE: NKE) in a report released on Wednesday.

In the UK, millions of shoppers took to both the high street and online stores to find bargains during the first day of Boxing Day sales. Analysts at Experian predicted that Christmas 2012 will be the "biggest and busiest ever" for online retailers in the UK, with visits to retail websites expected to reach 126 million. Amazon.co.uk has seen Christmas Day sales almost treble over the last five years, with the owners of new MP3s and tablets rushing to buy downloads for their latest gadgets, reported 'The Guardian'.

A total of 9.8 million shoppers, or one in five Britons, will spend an average of 46.10 pounds in the sales today, each buying 13 items during the January sales, according to the latest released figures.

According to the Sheilas’ Wheels Annual Sales Spending Report, one in 10 is prepared to queue for up to two hours, while one in five to shop online instead. This survey gathered the shopping intentions of more than 1,000 men and women for the

In the same vein, a separate survey by MoneySupermarket.com found almost four million Britons (8 percent) plan to head out to the Boxing Day sales in addition to more than five million (10 percent) who will stay home and search for bargains online.

In Australia, retailers are expecting overall Boxing Day spending to top 1.8 billion Australian dollars. The Australian National Retailers Association (ANRA) predicts Victorians will spend the most at 588 million Australian dollars, closely followed by NSW on 511 million dollars. Victoria has unrestricted trading across the state, but NSW has public holiday shopping restrictions outside tourist precincts, explained the Aussie journal 'Financial review'.

Big spending is expected to continue across Australia on Thursday, with a predicted spend of 1.2 billion Australian dollars. Spending for the first week of the sales is predicted to top 5.7 billion Australian dollars, with NSW spending the most at 1.7 billion followed by Victoria on 1.4 billion.

Clothing, homewares and electronics will be the most popular items bought, the ANRA says.

In neighbouring New Zealand, customers spent about 120 million Australian dollars in more than two million transactions, what implies a 13.4 percent increase on last Boxing Day, reported the New Zealand Wire.

Paymark, which processes about 75 per cent of electronic transactions, says it's the first time in five years it has seen double digit growth over Boxing Day sales. In declarations for local media, Paymark's head of sales and marketing Paul Whiston says the figures, released on Thursday, are fantastic news for retailers.

Electronics had the biggest growth, up 31.7 percent annually, while clothing and apparel sales were up 20.7 percent and jewellery 24.4 percent. Department store sales saw an increase of 22.4 percent. "It was a bit of a surprise to see the magnitude of the increase, compared to last year," Whiston told NZ Newswire.