Students Erica Oh, left, and Youlim Moon, right, camp outdoors in their wait to buy laptops at Best Buy’s Black Friday sale Thursday in Cerritos, Calif. Stores are hoping for a surge of shoppers today, despite the economic woes and frozen credit markets.

Chicago ? The nation’s retailers are set to usher in the holiday shopping season Friday with pre-dawn openings, deep discounts and a downright dismal economic outlook that threatens to keep shoppers’ credit cards securely in their wallets.

Stores are extending their hours — some opening at midnight — and preparing for a surge of shoppers searching for discounts that promise to be even deeper than a year ago.

But the question remains whether anyone will be spending much money as a recession nears, credit markets remain frozen, layoffs loom and consumer spending shrinks.

“We think the numbers are going to be pretty bad across the board,” Morningstar analyst Brady Lemos said.

That’s not stopping sales associates at Target Corp. from handing out maps to find hot items, such as the 26-inch flat-screen HDTV by Westinghouse that’s available for $299.

At Wal-Mart Stores Inc., a Magnavox Blu-ray player is on sale for $128.

Meanwhile, at some Best Buy Co. Inc. sites, coffee and doughnuts will be available for customers waiting for doors to open at 5 a.m.

Inside, they’ll find Toshiba laptops starting at $379.99 and a Garmin GPS system for $189.99.

And at J.C. Penney Co., there’ll be 20 percent more items dubbed Black Friday specials. Among them will be the half-carat diamond necklace that’s $79.99.

Black Friday, named because it was often the sales-packed day when retailers would become profitable for the year, was the biggest sales generator of the season last year.

While it isn’t a predictor of holiday season sales, the day after Thanksgiving is an important barometer of people’s willingness to spend.

Last year, the Thanksgiving shopping weekend of Friday through Sunday accounted for about 10 percent of overall holiday sales, according to ShopperTrak RCT Corp.

The group hasn’t released estimates for Black Friday sales this year, but experts believe it will remain one of the season’s biggest selling days, even as shoppers remain deliberate in their spending.

Britt Beemer, chairman of America’s Research Group, expects to see a surge of shoppers for the early morning deals today but predicts crowds will taper off throughout the day and into the weekend.

“I think we are going to see the busiest Black Friday ever, but will it carry over past 10 a.m.?” he said. “The bottom line is a great Black Friday does not make a season.”