What We're Reading

When Americans started celebrating Thanksgiving in the 19th century, it was about cherishing the blessings of the year, particularly the year’s harvest. These days however, it appears as if many people spend the holiday thinking about what they might need rather than what they already have.

Over the past few years, Thanksgiving weekend has grown to become a huge shopping extravaganza both on- and offline. Retailers try to outdo each other in offering the best Black Friday / Cyber Monday deals and consumers willingly jump at the chance to kick off their holiday shopping and snap up some bargains.

Not surprisingly, this year’s Thanksgiving weekend saw online shopping records shattered once again. According to Adobe Digital Insights, total online sales for the five-day period from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday amounted to $12.8 billion, with Cyber Monday marking the single biggest online shopping day in history. Black Friday and Cyber Monday were also the first days in history that

Have you noticed in the last several years that there are an increasingly large number of restaurant related stocks out there?  It seems that every week there is an IPO of some new hot concept stock.  The reason for this influx of restaurant stocks is because Americans are increasingly choosing to eat their meals out rather than cook at home.  Today’s Retail Sales report for the month of April was a perfect case in point.  

While overall sales were unchanged, sales at Bars and Restaurants increased 0.7%, while sales at Food and Beverage Stores declined 0.13% in what has been a continuation of a trend that has been in place for the last several years.

The chart shows the historical share of total sales that both Bars and Restaurants and Food and Beverage Stores have accounted for.  Over time, the two sectors have accounted for around one quarter of total retail sales, but as the chart below illustrates the breakdown in each sector’s share has changed dramatically.  In 1993, Bars and Res

The National Federation of Retailers is out with some bad news about Black Friday – it sucked.  Some superlatives via WSJ:

“Shoppers spent an average $159.55 online, down 10.2% from $177.67 last year.”

“the number of people who went shopping over the four-day weekend declined by 5.2% to 134 million, from 141 million last year.”

“Total spending from Thursday through Sunday sank 11% from a year earlier to $50.9 billion”

The excuses you’ll hear will range from the warm weather in the Northeast to the protests to the late scheduling of Hanukkah this year to the whole “consumers are smart enough to wait til closer to Christmas”.  My own take is that online is going to be big all month long and traditional shopping patterns are null and void. There’s nothing important about Black Friday to most consumers anymore. They know the deals will be endless and often.

Courtesy of ReformedBroker

Kos here - My other thought is that it's tough to spend a lot on Christmas when you're earning minimu

Everyone knows our beloved five year rally seems to be weakening of late.  The big question is just "how" weak will it become.  If anyone tells you they know that answer, stop reading that website.  Certainly more and more sectors are now exhibiting profit taking even as fund managers lounge sipping Mai Tai's from their catamarans off the coast.  Indeed selling can beget more selling, however that doesn't mean we may not see a few days of buying to test overhead resistance and see if it holds; if the "top" is truly in.

Now is not a time (imo) to add to a long position.

Now is a time to be hedged or flat in a long portfolio.

Now is the time for day trades or brief swing trades.

Now is a time to let the charts show you direction.

A second enormous week of earnings lies before us.  While thus far companies are largely beat (which should be the case if they're well run), forward guidance hasn't been all that impressive from a sales growth perspective.

Buybacks and dividend increases