Will holiday sales come up short? Not according to the stock market

When it comes to the holiday selling season and stock market performance, there's a case to be made that retail sales forecasts are putting the shopping cart before the equity horse.

That's the conclusion from Jeffrey Kleintop, chief market strategist at LPL Financial, the Boston-based financial services firm. According to his research, the market's a remarkably good predictor of holiday sales -- and what Mr. Market is saying is that the holiday shopping season will turn out much better than feared.