Black friday disappoints

As many of you may know the Friday after Thanksgiving, called Black Friday by the retail industry, is almost always the busiest shopping day of the year. Revenue results from Black Friday are a harbinger for the health of Holiday sales. And this year they are also a harbinger of the health of 70% of the economy in the form of consumer spending. So what are the early returns saying?

The early returns are saying that consumers increased their spending by 0.5% over last year. These data come from a firm called ShopperTrak RCT Corp. that tracks sales of around 50,000 U.S. retailers. These initial data have got to be considered a disappointment. Why? Because last year’s Black Friday sales took place in the midst of tremendous discussion of the next Great Depression settling in. The stock market had crashed and lost many year’s worth of value. And ultimately GDP dropped by close to 10% in one quarter. Ouch! Additionally, many, if not most, retailers deeply discounted merchandise this year. I ventured out myself to a mall in Colorado that is the HOT mall and every retailer was offering 25-35% off sales. So for this year’s sales to be a tepid half percent better is clearly disappointing.

What to watch for:

1. This means that GDP growth in the Fourth Quarter is likely to be below estimates.

2. The financial markets response tomorrow to these sales figures. My guess (and it is just that) is that the financial markets will see a sell off. The markets have been rising excessively on mildly good news. These sales figures, in my mind, warrant a sell off.

Thanks for reading!

Jason