16 Dec A great Black Friday but ha ha, not really.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/americans-are-full-steam-ahead-on-holiday-shopping-173531408.html
Uh . . . really?
Now, I will ‘fess up: I went nowhere on Black Friday. I am one of the unfortunate “long haulers” who has to deal with C-19 complications that want to hang on. 😖 Even if I’d had a big pot of money saved up for holiday shopping, I couldn’t have gone anywhere and gotten pushed and shoved in a crowd. No flippin’ way. But the thing is: I haven’t heard of any pushing and shoving or huge crowds showing up, well, anywhere. People went on YT to document local stores and/or malls that would typically be packed to the rafters on Black Friday but were desolate this year. In some cases, it appeared to be 5 or 6 shoppers in a store with no one else but employees. Can you imagine!
I think a lot of people stayed home on Thursday and Friday and watched football.
“The Thanksgiving afternoon game between the New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys set the mark for the most-watched NFL regular-season game on record.
The Cowboys’ 28-20 victory on Fox averaged 42 million US viewers, according to Nielsen, surpassing the 41.55 million average for the Monday night game between the Giants and San Francisco 49ers on ABC in December 1990. Average viewer record numbers date to 1988.
The Buffalo Bills’ 28-25 win over the Detroit Lions on CBS was the most-watched early Thanksgiving Day game on record with a 31.6 million average.
The night game between the New England Patriots and Minnesota Vikings averaged 25.9 million, the second-highest audience for a Thanksgiving night contest. The Vikings’ 33-26 victory was surpassed only by the 2015 game between the Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers (27.8 million).”
–https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/nov/26/nfl-regular-season-most-watched-game-dallas-cowboys-new-york-giants-thanksgiving-day-2022#:~:text=The%20Cowboys’%2028%2D20%20victory,on%20ABC%20in%20December%201990.
Yet we are supposed to believe that tons of people went shopping either in-person or online on Friday.
“Aimee White is worried about inflation and is fearful of a recession, but she’s not letting this impact her holiday spending.
‘We’ve been through so much over the past couple of years so even though the economic situation is difficult, and we’re not exactly flush with cash, we need to let our hair down and enjoy ourselves,’ she said. ‘This year, it’s full steam ahead for a holiday extravaganza.’
This sentiment is echoed by countless other Americans, said Rod Sides, Global Leader of Deloitte Insights, especially by lower-income consumers who may have sat last year out.
‘We’re seeing greater participation among lower-income households (those who earn less than $50,000 per year),’ Sides said. ‘They’ve settled into the “new normal,”‘ and are feeling more stable — and hopeful — given wage growth, said Sides. ‘They’re going to jump in and spend.'”
-Yahoo Finance
WTF?
“Sides said this group of shoppers plan to spend an average of $671 this holiday season. That’s 25% more than last year.
On the flip side, high-income earners (those who make more than $100,000 per year) plan to cut back by 7%, bringing their spending down to an average of $2,438.
Add it all up and spending, overall, will match 2021 levels at $1,455, said Sides. ‘But with inflation running in the 8% range, we’re spending differently.'”
-Yahoo Finance
I can’t tell anyone what to do. Although I would certainly ask the question: if you are planning to INCREASE your holiday spending in the middle of an economic mess… what are you thinking?
–https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/26/black-friday-online-sales-top-9-billion-in-new-record.html
In the TL;DR key points we read:
“Consumers spent a record $9.12 billion online shopping during Black Friday this year, according to Adobe.
Overall online sales for Black Friday were up 2.3% year-over-year.
Buy Now Pay Later payments increased by 78% compared with the past week, beginning Nov. 19, as consumers continue to grapple with high prices and inflation.”
So if it’s even true that online sales for BF were up, people used credit cards and/or buy now, pay later to finance it. This cannot end well.
But wait . . . there’s more!
Published on LI yesterday, we find:
“Retail sales drop most in 11 months
Retail sales fell the most in nearly a year during November, even as the holiday shopping season kicked into gear. The overall value of sales dropped 0.6% from the prior month, after jumping 1.3% in October. The Commerce Department’s figures don’t account for inflation, which has only begun to decline from a decades-high level. Stores including Walmart and Target have said shoppers are spending more on food and other necessities than on discretionary items, including furniture and toys. The November and December holiday shopping season accounts for a fifth of retailers’ annual sales.” –https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/retail-sales-drop-most-in-11-months-6114802/
Riiiiiiiiiiight. So we went from ‘woo-hoo Black Friday’s still doin’ great’ to ‘uh, uh-oh. Retail sales are kinda sucky.’
Do you not think we won’t see the same foolishness re: how these outlets are reporting on the job market? I am highly confident that we will. One day it’ll be something like, “Oopsy daisy! Turns out that labor market isn’t blazing hawt after all. Ha ha. Sorry.”
You don’t have to be the person who gets blindsided by the news.
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