I already did a thread on this....only the other way around. Stockpiling does happen, there is some pretty undeniable proof of it in the numbers and as NJ5 pointed out from the horses mouth itself. They stockpiled for X-mas and in quantities greater than 1m units which is definitely significant and I think on the level with "the extent that people believe", if not beyond it.
The problem with your X-mas analysis is that you are trying to disprove stockpiling without regard for whether it is true or not. And the reason I say that is because you don't even attempt to explain what happened to the extra units that were produced in July through October but weren't sold at retailers. By definition the fact that month after month those units were unnaccounted for means that they were stockpiled...for what is hard to say but there was absolutely a great deal of stockpiling going on.
Now, with that said it does not mean that stockpiling is the cause of the up & down fluctuations we are currently seeing in the weekly numbers. In fact I'm actually fairly skeptical of the idea that stockpiling could be used to account for these changes since stockpiling is something they could easily control. I seriously doubt they would stockpile with such rollercoaster like ups and downs when a flat steady rate of stockpiling is not only far more logical and easier to implemement but also has the exact same effect.
In summary, I disagree with your assessment of the holidays quite a bit. I will say I'm not sold on your current theory for the fluctuations either but I don't see anything that jumps out as patantly wrong for now...then again I am having a bit of a hard time following you since there is definitely something being lost in translation so to speak. But I'm not willing to dismiss your view simply for that reason and will remain undecided on the matter for now.
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