I'd call this past weekend one of the most disappointing developements in months. the hype leading up to black friday was as deafening as any event ever and everyone from jim cramer on said that sales would be up 15-20% year over year. Instead sales were up a horrendous .5% and the avg amount people spent was way down. many more shoppers came out desperately looking for bargains and overall basically spent the same as last year. IT MEANS THE OVERALL XMAS SEASON COULD BE HORRENDOUS.
I tend to agree I just got back from shopping at Walmart an 1hr ago and the place was empty. They had piles of the Black Friday specials still on sale. Who needs all this stuff if you have it already? Sales statistics can be deceiving when we we are in a deflationary retail cycle - (+0.5%) is a disaster.... Just look around is everything you ever wanted cheaper than last year in BestBuy, Walmart, Target etc? Sales and revenue will fall in real-terms, retailers need to sell twice as many of the same products compared to last year to have the same revenue....it won't happen.
Most of the specials were nothing much anyway. Sure I got a couple of things but that was it...and some clothing which is always going to be around and at different low prices. My BF shopping took a grand total of 45 minutes. 25 online and 20 in store.
I scored an Xbox 360 Elite and three games for $365. Pretty sweet deal. It was my first BF outing. Pretty retarded if you ask me.
Market apparently trying to advance on "don't worry about Dubai" comments over the weekend.. back to shorting $USD et al.
Everything is fine no problem. A country defaulting is a good thing right? :-} Look at asia its up 3% already.