NEW YORK (Reuters) – The heavy snowstorm that swept the East Coast of the United States over the weekend may have cost retailers the potential for any upside to holiday sales, industry experts said on Monday.

Economy

The storm forced store closures for several hours on Saturday and kept shoppers at home in major metropolitan areas such as Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia for at least part of the weekend, which had been expected to be one of the biggest shopping periods before Christmas.

The ability to shop online and the four days left before Christmas should allow shoppers to catch up on their gift buying, but that reduces the chances for impulse purchases.

“I’d look at it as an investor and say the storms all over the country are probably going to dampen the expectations for any kind of positive surprise that might have come out of this holiday season,” said Fred Dickson, director of retail research at D.A. Davidson & Co.

Tracking firm Planalytics estimated that the snowstorm cost U.S. retailers about $2 billion of sales they will not be able to recover.

But industry experts said neither in-store or online sales as a whole should be hugely affected. The National Retail Federation said on Monday it was keeping its forecast that U.S. retail sales would fall 1 percent to $437.6 billion this holiday season from a year ago.

“The impact of this storm on the East Coast isn’t enough to make a dent into large retailers’ national sales,” said NRF spokeswoman Kathy Grannis.

Retail shares tracked by the Standard & Poor’s Retail Index .RLX rose 1.7 percent on Monday. Shares of Amazon.com (AMZN.O) gained 3.4 percent on hopes of an even stronger showing by the web retail leader due to the storm.

A majority of consumers surveyed over the weekend said they were shopping as much or less online this holiday season, according to questions posed on behalf of Reuters by America’s Research Group.

Tracking firm comScore (SCOR.O) said it was not changing its forecast for a 3 percent rise in online holiday sales. Even if shopper demand was up over the weekend, not every retailer would be equipped to handle the requests, said comScore director Andrew Lipsman.

“I expect the needle to move but I don’t know that we’ll see massive change,” he said.

Discount retailer Target Corp (TGT.N) and bookseller Borders Group Inc (BGP.N) extended their business hours between Monday and Wednesday in areas hit by the snowstorm.

WINNERS AND LOSERS

On a larger scale, discount stores and electronics chains continue to be the big winners this season.

Nearly 56 percent of the 1,000 U.S. consumers surveyed over the weekend by America’s Research Group said they had shopped at Wal-Mart (WMT.N). Other big draws included Sears (SHLD.O), where more than 22 percent of people shopped, Target (TGT.N) and Best Buy (BBY.N).

Shares of Wal-Mart rose 1 percent on Monday, while Target gained 2.3 percent and Sears rose 3.2 percent.

Wal-Mart also appeared to be a winner for the entire season, based on its ability to get shoppers to return to its stores over the shopping season. Other retailers winning repeat visits from consumers included Target, J.C. Penney (JCP.N) and TJX Co’s (TJX.N) TJ Maxx chain.

Consumers still eschewed luxury and big ticket items. Saks Inc (SKS.N) and Home Depot Inc (HD.N) lured less than half of their customers for a repeat visit.

The storm’s impact could affect the fortunes of some individual retailers, helping those with strong websites and hurting chains with heavy store exposure on the East Coast.

Erika Maschmeyer, a senior research analyst with Robert W. Baird & Co, said that Gap Inc (GPS.N) may have suffered from the weekend’s weather disruptions because of its heavy presence on the East Coast, while Nordstrom Inc (JWN.N) only has about 14 percent of its stores in the region.

Shares of Gap rose 0.6 percent, while Nordstrom gained 3.1 percent.

“Overall, it puts a damper on retail expectations — snow hurts traffic, and if shoppers are not in stores they’re not as likely to make an impulse purchase,” she said

Shoppers choosing to expedite online purchases could provide a slight lift to FedEx Corp (FDX.N) and United Parcel Service Inc (UPS.N), said Kurt Brunner, a portfolio manager at Swarthmore Group in Philadelphia. Shares of FedEx slipped 0.3 percent on Monday, while UPS rose 1.1 percent.

(Additional reporting by Edward Krudy and Leah Schnurr; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Steve Orlofsky)

LOS ANGELES/CHICAGO (Reuters) – Retailers are counting on time-crunched shoppers to swarm stores on “Super Saturday,” but a heavy winter storm threatened to strand them at home on the final weekend before Christmas.

Economy

A snowstorm blanketed the U.S. East Coast early on Saturday, with storm warnings in effect from North Carolina in the south to southern New England. The National Weather Service warned of “extremely treacherous” travel conditions throughout the region.

“The one thing a retailer doesn’t want is a major snowstorm on the Saturday before Christmas,” said Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at the NPD Group. “This is definitely not the Christmas gift any retailer would ever ask for.”

“It was kind of eerie the Friday night before Christmas to see some of the retail malls not as busy as they should have been,” he added about the sporadic shopper traffic he saw at stores on the East Coast.

Cohen said if the weather clears up many consumers may simply shift their shopping to Sunday, but retailers will nonetheless feel an impact where the weather was bad.

Severe weather could derail sales on Saturday at retailers with a large presence in cities from New York to Washington D.C., including Bon-Ton Stores (BONT.O), Saks Inc (SKS.N), Macy’s Inc (M.N) and American Eagle Outfitters Inc (AEO.N).

Even before the storm, nobody was predicting a blow-out year for holiday sales as consumers are still under pressure from a double-digit unemployment rate and a weak economy.

Retailers have worked to avoid a repeat of last year, when a global economic meltdown left them buried in excess merchandise and desperate to make a sale at almost any price.

Holiday sales forecasts have narrowed over the course of the shopping season to a range of down 1 percent to up 1 percent from 2008, when sales fell for the first time since the National Retail Federation started tracking the data.

“We believe retail sales will likely suffer as the sales lost during what historically has been the busiest weekend of the year will not be recovered. You can’t make up for lost days!” Stifel Nicolaus analyst Richard Jaffe said in a Friday note.

Jaffe and others said storms could drive consumers to shop online. While that could be a boon for sites such as Amazon.com (AMZN.O), consumers may have to pay unwanted last-minute shipping fees to ensure gifts arrive by December 25.

On Friday afternoon, Gap Inc (GPS.N) noted on its namesake site that shoppers could order online until December 23 to get gifts on time.

Those still trying to finish their shopping appear to be waiting for steeper discounts.

“There’s always going to be a step up in the promotions in the days before the holiday, and there’s going to be some clearance after the holiday,” said Cowen & Co analyst Laura Champine. “I do think it will be less promotional … it’s a really gradual training of the customer to buy closer to full price.”

Consumers surveyed in late November by Consumer Edge Research said they planned to spend an average of $402 on gifts this season. That was down from the $440 those polled in October said they were planning for. (Reporting by Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles, Phil Wahba and Nicole Maestri in New York and Jessica Wohl and Ben Klayman in Chicago, editing by Anthony Boadle)

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Russia’s UC RUSAL, the world’s biggest aluminum maker, may not be able to sell IPO shares to retail investors even if it wins approval for its increasingly troubled $2 billion Hong Kong initial public offering.

Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission has proposed limiting the IPO sale to institutions, preventing private individuals from taking part in the landmark float, IFR Asia reported on Thursday, citing sources.

A separate Reuters source confirmed the SFC proposal, which would be a major setback in the group’s lengthy quest to raise cash to pay down debt, but said the Hong Kong Stock Exchange did not agree with the condition.

The SFC plans to hold a meeting on Friday to further discuss the issue to see if they can resolve the matter, according to that source. A RUSAL spokeswoman declined comment.

UC RUSAL, controlled by industrial magnate Oleg Deripaska, has secured Russia’s largest-ever debt restructuring and is trying to press ahead with plans to list 10 percent of its shares in Hong Kong and Paris.

Hong Kong regulators will not approve the listing until RUSAL meets certain conditions.

“The RUSAL deal has raised a lot of questions,” said a Moscow fund manager, who asked not to be named.

“The law suit against Deripaska is one of the concerns. The company has gone through a debt restructuring, it’s the first Russian company to list in Hong Kong — I can understand why Hong Kong is showing caution.”

OUTRAGE

One of the conditions is expected to be clarification of the repayment terms of a $4.5 billion loan from state bank VEB — part of a government-backed rescue of the firm last year.

Russian news agency Interfax reported on Thursday that RUSAL’s improved financial state could allow it to refinance the debt with a commercial bank, which The Financial Times said was likely to be Russia’s biggest lender, Sberbank.

Hong Kong regulators were meeting with RUSAL representatives to discuss other conditions for the IPO, sources close to the matter have told Reuters. It is not yet clear if Hong Kong regulators or RUSAL have reached any final agreement on whether the IPO could officially go forward.

Although RUSAL has restructured its debt, the company is still very new turf for Hong Kong regulators.

The primary listing of a non-Asian company on Hong Kong’s exchange is very rare and regulators have spent weeks mulling it over.

Earlier this month RUSAL named two Hong Kong based non-executive directors to its board.

Hong Kong’s population are famously enthusiastic about IPOs, often lining up at banks for popular offerings. But small investors are also notorious for publicly venting their outrage when they feel regulators have let them down.

(Additional reporting by Fiona Lau and John Bowker; Editing by David Cowell)