In Geneva, the famous “Pink Star” diamond fetches $83 million at auction, almost double the price ever paid for such a stone, and in Arkansas, Walmart lowers its sales outlook for the holiday season. That might be a metaphor for the holiday shopping season, where grouchy retailers are predicting a relatively tiny 3 percent increase in sales over last year. “The nerds and geeks are making tons of money,” forecaster Allen Sinai, chief economist at Decision Economics Inc., tells the Wall Street Journal, which adds that this is happening “even as the typical American suffers from stagnant wages and worries about layoffs.”

Still, lots of those “typical Americans” are loading up on household appliances, cars and houses, which is good news for the economy, but not such good news for retailers who would rather see the money spent on clothes, gadgets, toys and the stuff with which they have crammed their shelves.