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not as briefly as I'd like, but
Dec. 2nd, 2008 12:33 amGood evening.
Okay, so, in brief; a number of general/mainstream news agencies were reporting decent sales on Black Friday. This is not actually true. The reports listing this were mostly operating with notoriously inaccurate - and consistently overstated - survey data. The better reports saying "up 3%" were reporting ShopperTrack data at physical stores, which is somewhat more accurate, but still notorious for running high in their preliminary data. The most accurate data available now is online sales tracking by ComScore, which showed growth of 1% (not adjusted for inflation). Given that online sales growth numbers been exceeding physical-store sales over the last several years, this may imply physical-store sales declines, but that's speculation; we'll know when more data is available.
Stocks dealt badly, with the Dow down the least of the indicies by percentage, with its fourth greatest absolute-number decline ever, and -7.7%; the S&P 500 was down 8.93%, the NASDAQ down 8.95%. Oil also fell sharply, though there is good reason to consider this temporary.
The BDI shipping index fell to 700; we're currently in 1986, but will need to fall into the mid-500s before we go back further than that. Manufacturing numbers were terrible, to numbers not seen since the 1980-1982 recession era, and the current recession is official and is listed as starting last December, a year ago. Well spotted, then, or something.
Credit events to watch: Oppenheimer & Co.'s Meredith Whitney thinks credit card companies will cut up to US$2T in lines. The ultrabears banking on Swiss government bonds may have bet very, very wrong. Bank of America bondholders are extremely unhappy with renegotiations and are suing. Finally, and most importantly, Euromoney reports that the US treasury settlement system is drastically broken (already known) and is reaching a "breaking point" which will trigger a crisis.
That's all I have time for tonight. Good luck tomorrow.
morning eta: Spinning Black Friday retail sales.
Okay, so, in brief; a number of general/mainstream news agencies were reporting decent sales on Black Friday. This is not actually true. The reports listing this were mostly operating with notoriously inaccurate - and consistently overstated - survey data. The better reports saying "up 3%" were reporting ShopperTrack data at physical stores, which is somewhat more accurate, but still notorious for running high in their preliminary data. The most accurate data available now is online sales tracking by ComScore, which showed growth of 1% (not adjusted for inflation). Given that online sales growth numbers been exceeding physical-store sales over the last several years, this may imply physical-store sales declines, but that's speculation; we'll know when more data is available.
Stocks dealt badly, with the Dow down the least of the indicies by percentage, with its fourth greatest absolute-number decline ever, and -7.7%; the S&P 500 was down 8.93%, the NASDAQ down 8.95%. Oil also fell sharply, though there is good reason to consider this temporary.
The BDI shipping index fell to 700; we're currently in 1986, but will need to fall into the mid-500s before we go back further than that. Manufacturing numbers were terrible, to numbers not seen since the 1980-1982 recession era, and the current recession is official and is listed as starting last December, a year ago. Well spotted, then, or something.
Credit events to watch: Oppenheimer & Co.'s Meredith Whitney thinks credit card companies will cut up to US$2T in lines. The ultrabears banking on Swiss government bonds may have bet very, very wrong. Bank of America bondholders are extremely unhappy with renegotiations and are suing. Finally, and most importantly, Euromoney reports that the US treasury settlement system is drastically broken (already known) and is reaching a "breaking point" which will trigger a crisis.
That's all I have time for tonight. Good luck tomorrow.
morning eta: Spinning Black Friday retail sales.
