Nov. 24 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. retailers greeted ``huge'' numbers of shoppers as they offered early-bird specials and staged stunts to kick off the holiday shopping season today.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, opened at 5 a.m. with 42-inch plasma TVs for under $1,000 and cashmere sweaters for $29 for the first six hours. Target Corp. hired magician David Blaine to escape from shackles while dangling five stories over New York's Times Square to draw attention to a two-day sale starting today.

The longer hours and price cuts may help retailers raise holiday sales 5 percent this year to $457 billion, according to the National Retail Federation. The season starts the day after Thanksgiving, called Black Friday because at one time it was considered the day retailers turned profitable for the year. It will probably be the second-biggest shopping day this year.

``It is a huge day for traffic,'' NRF President Tracy Mullin said in a statement today. Retailers are ``encouraged by the amount of excitement and traffic that their Black Friday promotions have generated.''

Wal-Mart, out of the gate earlier and more aggressively than last year, put electronics on sale three weeks ago and has since lowered prices on toys, small appliances and food. Kmart, a unit of Hoffman Estates, Illinois-based Sears Holdings Corp., was open on Thanksgiving and offered deals on games and cameras.

Busy Day

Black Friday will be second-busiest shopping day this year after Dec. 23, the Saturday before Christmas, Chicago-based ShopperTrak RCT Corp. predicted Nov. 15. Today may be Federated Department Stores Inc.'s biggest day this year, Chief Executive Officer Terry Lundgren said in an interview. The NRF will release Thanksgiving weekend sales data on Nov. 26.

Higher oil prices and a weaker dollar sparked concerns that holiday sales and economic growth may falter, pushing retailers' stocks lower.

Retail shares had the second-steepest drop among two dozen industry groups in the S&P 500, sliding 0.8 percent. Shares of Bentonville, Arkansas-based Wal-Mart fell 13 cents to $47.90 at 1 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. Federated rose 9 cents to $43.11.

Up at Midnight

Last year, consumers spent $27.8 billion over the first holiday shopping weekend, the NRF said. About 32 percent of the retail industry's profit came during the final quarter of 2005, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers.

The number of malls open at midnight this year tripled, operators including Simon Property Group Inc. said. Shoppers such as Donna Barrow of Princeton, Texas, lined up before 12 a.m. today to get a head start on gift buying.

``I figure it's a lot easier staying up until midnight than it is getting up at 4 a.m.,'' said Barrow, who was looking for jerseys with Dallas Cowboys football team quarterback Tony Romo's name at the Allen Premium Outlets mall in Allen, Texas.

Yesterday Wal-Mart posted on its Web site specials on Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 video-game machine and a $30 General Electric Co. microwave oven. The site was down for 20 minutes this morning. Wal-Mart spokeswoman Karen Burk said the company was trying to find out what the situation was.

Best Buy Co., the largest U.S. electronics retailer, opened five hours early at 5 a.m. today and had discounts at its more than 800 stores until noon.

Coming Back

While price-cutting will trim profit on each item sold, retailers aim to compensate by selling more merchandise. They may hold off on offering the best prices until next month, prompting consumers to put off shopping until later in the season, said Burt Flickinger, managing director of Strategic Resource Group, a New York consulting firm.

Diedra Rhames, a 21-year-old college student from Brooklyn, New York, came off a Target checkout line this morning with essentials such as sheets. ``I'm going to come back again when they have some more discounts,'' she said. ``They always do when we get a little closer to Christmas.''

About 137 million Americans planned to shop this weekend, compared with 130 million who planned to a year earlier, according to an NRF survey. Shoppers are planning to spend an average $791.10 each this season, the group said.

Sold Out

New products this year are Mattel Inc.'s T.M.X. Elmo doll, an interactive fuzzy Muppet from the ``Sesame Street'' children's show, Microsoft's Zune music player and Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 3 video-game console.

Mary Beth Fanning, a 42-year-old homemaker, joined 15 other people at a Gamestop Corp. store at 6 a.m., an hour before opening. She was seeking the new Nintendo Co. Wii game console.

``They were sold out before I got in the door,'' the Medina, Ohio resident said. She also called Target, Best Buy, Kmart and Wal-Mart, all sold out.

Many shoppers may wait until Nov. 27 to buy online after checking prices at stores over the weekend. Sales on U.S. Internet sites will probably rise 24 percent in November and December to $24 billion, according to ComScore Networks Inc., a Reston, Virginia-based Internet-research company.

Growing demand for gift cards, which aren't counted as sales until they're redeemed, may shift some revenue into the weeks after Christmas. Customers plan to spend $24.8 billion on gift cards to give as presents this year, a 34 percent increase from last year, the NRF said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Cotten Timberlake in New York at ctimberlake@bloomberg.net; Lauren Coleman-Lochner in New York at llochner@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: November 24, 2006 15:08 EST