Comments on: Spinning Black Friday Retail Sales

By: ottovbvs

ottovbvs — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 16:34:07 +0000

BR: you are right. It’s a ritual like cooking turkeys at Thanksgiving. And it’s mostly total bs. Whenever I visit my favorite stores I always have a chat with a few assistants with whom I’ve struck up relationships over the years and they tell the truth. And the truth is it’s awful! There’s a wider problem here I think and it’s one of the things driving people away from newspapers. Maybe it was always bs and the net has just revealed its flaws but every day the papers are packed with total bs. The Pakistani’s telling you how many terrorists they killed today; the NAR telling you how this is a great time to buy a house because the market has bottomed; admonitions to Obama warning him of Hillary’s plans to run her own foreign policy; car workers in Detroit earning $72 an hour; victory in Iraq; FDR caused the great depression; the reverse reverse Bradley effect reversed; the Goldilocks economy is back; Cramer says he’s been a perma bull for years; it never ends and it’s turning our brains to pulp. Thank god for BR and his ilk.

By: nsb123

nsb123 — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 20:13:33 +0000

A electronic retail shop owner in the area, a collegue’s family member, says typically he has 100K business on Friday after thanksgiving. This year, he has had only 50K.

The scary thing is that this is in Silicon Valley. Things have not been that bad here on the job front.

By: Daniel Hudson

Daniel Hudson — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 20:05:16 +0000

I’m glad you made a post to discuss the true sales, but I would not consider comScore’s results THAT much better of an indicator than ShopperTrak’s. Online sales have historically made up only 5% of Black Friday sales and whether we will continue to see the same percentage again this year is debatable. Plus, have you looked into how comScore gets their sales number? From a quick glace it looks like they have a set of companies that are willing to give them their sales figures and I do not know how many companies these guys are missing.

On a related note, comScore’s site mentions that YoY Cyber Monday online sales is very good at predicting YoY online sales during the holiday season so waiting to see today’s number from comScore should be beneficial.

By: Bruce N Tennessee

Bruce N Tennessee — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 17:24:08 +0000

Winston…

Since I can’t change what is going to happen (whatever that is), and it looks increasingly like government may not change much either…I am just trying to do the best I can.

I do realize that the internet has saved my bacon now for the second time in a decade…what a wonderful tool, encyclopedia, mailbox, investment waystation, catalog site, entertainment evaluator, ticket hub, etc….how did we manage before Al Gore invented it?

Thanks again, Barry, for your blog, and your reasoned bloggers…

By: Winston Munn

Winston Munn — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 17:03:19 +0000

@Bruce N Tennessee

PBS interview of Robert Kuttner – to me, it seemed every other sentence started, if we are to avoid depression….

“We need the government big time to prevent this from becoming the Great Depression II,” Robert Kuttner tells NOW’s David Brancaccio.

Kuttner has also testified to Congress about failure of deregulation.

By: jason

jason — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:48:43 +0000

I share the opinion that more people than usual will be out on Black Friday trying to find bargains. I know my family was and they are now effectively done for the season. They had a smaller budget and were trying to stretch it for all it was worth. My wife and I are forgoing gifts for each other. We still have our jobs and are not underwater on our home.

By: mw

mw — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:45:24 +0000

Many investors think these huge daily rallies are a pretext to a bigger rally .. they don’t understand that a really huge bear market will have huge (sucker) rallies.

By: D.H.

D.H. — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:34:24 +0000

Even IF numbers looked a tad better on DAY ONE, it makes perfect sense that this year people must capture the best possible sales because they have less money to spend. Thus, the Black Friday activity is skewed. Once we have the full season’s data, we will clearly be disappointed since the House ATM doesn’t exist this year.

By: leftback

leftback — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:29:46 +0000

Right on, Barry.

The RTH and the URE seem to be telling the REAL story of retail prospects today… today’s pullback was fairly well telegraphed. I got some SRS on Friday and will sit in it until we have a solid reversal.

This is not going to be a good week for stocks but I may do some bargain hunting in energy/precious metals.
The action in the long bonds is amazing. It sure looks like a bubble but I am not fighting this battle today.

By: advsys

advsys — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:28:06 +0000

I bet we get spin even around the Master card numbers. Something like there was a shift to cash this year so you should ignore these terrible numbers etc.