WASHINGTON — From Intel Corp. to TJX Cos., the outlook for the U.S. retail holiday season is becoming more optimistic.

Intel, the world's biggest chipmaker, cited stronger consumer demand in projecting Oct. 13 that its sales in the fourth quarter would be $9.7 billion to $10.5 billion, compared with a $9.5 billion average prediction in a Bloomberg News survey. TJX, the Framingham, Mass.-based operator of clothing-store chains T.J. Maxx and Marshalls, raised its fourth-quarter comparable-sales estimate on Oct. 8 to a gain of 3 percent to 5 percent from an increase of 2 percent to 4 percent.

"Consumers' bunker mentality is gradually giving way to more-familiar spending patterns," says Michael Feroli, a former Federal Reserve official who is now an economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in New York.

Rising sales would be good news for the economy as well as retailers. Consumption accounts for about 70 percent of gross domestic product, and more spending would help the recovery.

UBS Securities in New York improved its outlook for third- quarter economic growth to 3.5 percent from 2.5 percent after last week's report of September retail sales was higher than it had expected. GDP fell 0.7 percent in the second quarter.

"Retail sales offer the most encouraging sign of a more lasting turn in activity," said Robert DiClemente, chief U.S. economist at Citigroup Global Markets in New York.

Helping to drive the improvement in consumer spending is a rebound in household wealth, which increased $2 trillion in the second quarter and about that much again in the third, according to Steven Wieting, managing director of economics and market analysis at Citigroup Global Markets Inc. in New York.

Retail sales excluding automobiles and restaurants might advance as much as 1.5 percent in the holiday season as "frugal fatigue" sets in and shoppers open up their wallets, says Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst for NPD Group, a Port Washington, N.Y.-based market-research firm.

Sales dropped 4.2 percent a year earlier during what the International Council of Shopping Centers said was the worst holiday season in four decades. The fastest growth since 2000 was 5.9 percent in 2005.

Sales at U.S. retailers, excluding automobiles, climbed 0.5 percent in September. The increase, more than twice the 0.2 percent anticipated by 78 economists in a Bloomberg survey, followed a 1 percent gain in August, the biggest in six months.

Intel's sales during the back-to-school season in the U.S. exceeded expectations, Paul Otellini, president and chief executive officer of the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company, said in an Oct. 13 conference call with analysts and reporters.

The company's shares climbed 34 cents, or 1.7 percent, to $20.83 the day after it announced the forecast for fourth-quarter sales, which topped the mean estimate of 29 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

Shares of Pier 1 Imports Inc. also rose after the Fort Worth, Texas-based retailer of imported furniture said Oct. 12 that sales at stores open at least a year increased 9.9 percent last month. Pier 1 ended at $4.85 on Oct. 13, the highest in 16 months.

Industry sales at stores open at least a year have outpaced analysts' estimates in the past two months and are likely to do so again in October, said Ken Perkins, president of Swampscott, Mass.-based Retail Metrics Inc.