After skipping Thursday trading in observance of the Thanksgiving holiday (burp!) we embark on a half-day of trading this Friday, with the markets closing at 1pm ET today. Early this pre-market period, a power outage at The CME Group CME caused a stoppage of early-morning trading that is finally coming back online fully at this hour.
Market indexes are up rather modestly as investors shake off that temporary shutdown. Currently, the Dow is up +52 points, +0.11%, while the S&P 500 is +7, +0.10%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq +45 points, +0.18%. This looks like the first down-trading month for the Nasdaq since March of this year, with the Dow -0.74%, the S&P 500-1.31%, the Nasdaq -3.12% and the small-cap Russell 2000 -0.87% month to date.
Black Friday Is Here! Still a Big Deal?
Today’s the day after Thanksgiving, so it’s officially Black Friday — the day retailers traditionally are able to switch from red ink in their year-to-date ledgers to black ink. Gone are the days of 500 hungry deal-hunters waiting for the locked door to open as the sun comes up, but holiday shopping is always a noteworthy topic for retailers.
The National Retail Federation expects no less than $1 TRILLION in revenues spent between November and December, which would be a record high shopping season. Adobe ADBE anticipates Black Friday retail numbers to grow +8.3% from last year. It was also reported a record $6.4 billion was spent on Thanksgiving spending this year, demonstrating the American consumer is alive and well.
However, in a survey from Deloitte taken back in October, holiday shopping from Black Friday through Cyber Monday is expected to average $622 per person, a -4.3% drop from last year. That said, 82% of the 1200 consumers surveyed expected to do some shopping this weekend, up from 79% in 2024.
Sandwiched in between these two bookends of inaugural holiday shopping this year is Small Business Saturday. Here we have some more anecdotal data: Small Business Confidence has come down steadily over the past three months, whether from tariffs increasing costs or immigration crackdowns keeping lower-pay employees from working small business jobs.
Generally speaking, higher-income people are less affected by higher prices, whether we’re talking about holiday shopping or something else. Lower-income Americans are expected to tighten their belts on spending this year. However, going back to the Deloitte report, both lower-wage earners (sub-$50K per year) and higher-wage earners (above $200K per year) are looking to spend less this holiday season. Only those between $100-199K are expected to ramp up spending this year.
Finally, “buy now/pay later” options look to be gaining traction this year, which would put payment plans in place for certain bigger-ticket items. Companies such as Affirm AFRM would stand to benefit from this trend, and shares are up +1.37% so far this hour, +13% year to date. The company beat earnings estimates last quarter by more than +100%.
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Adobe Inc. (ADBE) : Free Stock Analysis Report
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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
