And, just like that, the year is almost over…
$6.1Bn worth of on-line sales on Thanksgiving Day (up 8.8%) and another $10.8Bn spent on Black Friday (up 10.2%) gave us record Retail Sales – even though in-store purchases were only up 0.7% from last year (negative accounting for inflation). Overall store traffic was down 3.2% with the Midwest dropping a whopping 7% since last year. Buy Now, Pay Later is driving 10% of store sales and on-line baskets were TWICE the size of in-store bags.
Overall Global Sales hit $74.4Bn this weekend (so far) and that’s up 5% overall from last year – better than 3.7% expected. Home Appliances and Furniture did surprisingly well – up 20% from last year, followed by Footwear and Handbags – up 18%. The average discount rates were 28% – 2% more than last year.
Chatbots powered by AI were influential, as bot-driven clicks to retail sites rose by a whopping 1,800% compared to last year, Adobe found. A fifth of those surveyed by Adobe said they used chatbots to find deals, with 19% using them to find items and 15% using them for brand recommendations.
The shortened period between Black Friday and Christmas this year could particularly impact retailers dependent on holiday shopping. One MidWest company that could be in trouble is Marcus Corporation (MCS), a Theater and Hotel chain with reported decreased foot traffic during Thanksgiving weekend.
The stock has been on a tear since Trump’s election (and nice earnings) up 43% for the Magaland Corp but reality is not looking like it’s going to justify their now 46x earnings price and they are pushing $150M in debt against their (HOPEFULLY) $18M in earnings next year ($7M loss this year). They don’t have very good options to trade (too thin) but I do think it makes a nice short at $22.64.
Speaking of stock picks, we are finalizing our Trade of the Year candidates, which will be officially announced on Wednesday’s (7pm) Money Talk show on Bloomberg and we’ll be running through our list with the Members in today and tomorrow’s Live Member Chat Room – join us there!
And it’s a big week in the markets, catching up from last week’s lack of data so we’re making up for it with 11 Fed speakers including Powell at 1:45 on Wednesday and a bunch of Short-Term Note Auctions as well. Today we get PMI, ISM an Construction Data, tomorrow we have Motor Vehicle Sales and JOLTS. Wednesday is ADP, PMI, Factory Orders, ISM Services, Powell and the Beige Book and Friday is the Big Kahuna – Non-Farm Payrolls and Consumer Credit.
And there are still earnings. Always fun to dig into as we get to the tail end of Q3 – almost time to start getting the Q4 reports and Happy 2025… well, maybe that’s rushing it – but not by much:
It’s going to be a busy and fun week but don’t worry – just two more weeks of work and then two weeks off into the end of the year with Christmas and Thanksgiving on Wednesdays this year. So let’s work hard while we can…
