CHART OF THE DAY: New Consumer Tech May Drive A Monster Holiday Season

The fourth tax quarter officially began Wednesday; it ends Dec. 31. This is typically the time where most tech companies make their biggest pushes of the year, announcing new products in the months and weeks leading up to the all-important holiday shopping season.

This year, with tons of new products from some of the biggest tech companies like Apple and Google, BI Intelligence believes this quarter will mark "an all-time high for online spending." Based on its own estimates, BI Intelligence forecasts close to $100 billion in online spending in the fourth quarter - a 16% jump from the same quarter a year ago - including 13% of that spending coming from purchases made on smartphones and tablets.

There are a ton of popular smartphones out there already, and Apple at the end of last month released its two new iPhones, which broke the company's opening weekend sales records. It also will reportedly hold an event on Oct. 16 to reveal new iPads, Mac computers, and more. Google is also expected to launch a new Nexus-branded smartphone and tablet this season, too. But purchasing goods online might be made significantly easier thanks to Apple's new mobile payments platform, coming this month, which looks to make online payments exceedingly simple and secure.