The holidays turned out to be a lot brighter at the high end, as four major retailers reported results Tuesday.

Wal-Mart, Macy's, Home Depot and Saks Fifth Avenue all reported sales increases for their fourth quarters ending in January. But while Wal-Mart had to lower prices so aggressively that it hurt its profit, retailers focusing on higher-income customers crowed about the solid prices those shoppers paid.

For consumers with higher incomes, "I think there's generally more confidence today than there was at this time last year," said Terry J. Lundgren, Macy's chairman and chief executive. But, he added, where someone is "making decisions between filling up their gas tank or buying shoes or a handbag, that consumer certainly is more impacted."

Wal-Mart has been holding down prices to get customers to spend. "We've seen the unemployment numbers come down a little bit, and that's really good, but that hasn't stopped the paycheck cycle," said Charles M. Holley Jr., Wal-Mart's chief financial officer, referring to customers spending paycheck to paycheck.

Price cuts meant Wal-Mart's fourth-quarter margin in the United States decreased by $100 million, or 0.13 percentage point. For the company as a whole, gross margin for the year fell by 0.3 percentage point, to 24.5 percent of sales.

Saks Fifth Avenue, meanwhile, which said it is selling items like fine jewelry, fragrances and men's accessories at a fast clip, had a "historically high gross margin rate performance," the chairman and chief executive, Stephen I. Sadove, said in a statement. There was "reduced promotional activity" throughout the year as the company increased its full-priced sales, and its margins for the year rose to 40.8 percent of sales, from 40.1 percent.

Macy's gross margins declined by 0.3 percentage point for the quarter and for the year, but its margins, at 40.4 percent for the year, were much higher than Wal-Mart's.

Home Depot said that sales at stores that had been open at least a year, also known as same-store sales, had increased in 13 of its 14 categories, and that it was seeing improvement in the professional-contractor sector. Sales in states where housing markets were hit particularly hard by the recession, such as California and Florida, were continuing to progress.

"The performance of our business, particularly in the back half of 2011, would suggest a strengthening market," said Home Depot's chairman and chief executive, Frank Blake.

Same-store sales rose 5.7 percent for the fourth quarter. And two indicators of high-end momentum also rose: Transactions of more than $900 increased by 3 percent, while the professional-contractor business, which handles expensive home renovations, posted increases in transactions and the amount spent.

"We're starting to see the beginnings of an improvement among the professional contractors, which is great," said Carol B. Tome, chief financial officer.

Home Depot's margins increased 0.29 percentage point from a year ago, to 35 percent, which was mostly due to supply-chain improvements, Tome said.

Apart from their profit margins, all the retailers posted sales increases, though with mixed results.

Wal-Mart reported the second consecutive quarter of positive same-store sales; the retailer had been in a same-store sales slide for nine quarters before that.

The company said Tuesday that its domestic sales grew 2.4 percent in the quarter, to $72.8 billion, while sales at stores open at least a year increased 1.5 percent.

To achieve that, though, Wal-Mart's domestic profit margin slipped lower. Throughout its divisions, the company's consolidated net income fell 13 percent for the quarter, but Holley said in a telephone call with reporters that the drop was because of a net income number a year ago that was buoyed by a tax benefit from the disposal of a German business.

He said the more accurate number to look at was income from continuing operations, which rose 3.4 percent for the quarter, to $5.2 billion.

Sales rose 5.8 percent to $122 billion.

Macy's net income rose almost 12 percent from the fourth quarter a year ago, to $745 million, while its same-store sales rose 5.2 percent. Online sales for Macys.com and the Bloomingdales.com unit rose 40 percent from a year ago, and the company said it expected online sales in 2012 to exceed $2 billion.

At Saks, sales of luxury items pushed fourth-quarter net income up 48 percent to $37 million. Same-store sales rose 7.7 percent for the quarter.

At Home Depot, net income for the fourth quarter increased 32 percent to $774 million, while sales rose 6 percent to about $16 billion.

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