Sometime on Thursday, after the football game and the second slice of pie, you might turn on the television and see a cheerful local news reporter standing outside a mall and reporting on the long lines of deal-seeking shoppers. Or maybe it will be a Friday morning headline proclaiming, “Black Friday crowds signal strong holiday season.” Or perhaps the news will be grimmer, and the headline will read, “Sparse crowds worry retailers.”

You should ignore these stories.

Read the article “Black Friday Sales Numbers are Useless and Wrong” on fivethirtyeight.com.