Retail reports filtering in over the weekend paint a picture of a Black Friday weekend that was stronger than expected, although weaker than last year. This appears to be the case for both brick-and-mortar and online retailers, with some particularly strong reviews for Best Buy in both channels.
This is generally better than I would have thought given confidence and sentiment levels -- not to mention recent market weakness -- and represents a meaningful positive from a macro perspective.
However, from an Amazon perspective the results may be more mixed, with reports noting strong growth in the 49% range from AMZN affiliated sellers but a big decline from 80% growth last year.
This trend was reflected on a high level with overall online sales up 24% this year compared to 30% growth last year.
While this might reflect some upheaval in the affiliate channel, note that AMZN's overall revenue growth last year was 36% and the Street is modeled to the high end of management's very wide guidance range at 40% growth this quarter
It remains to be seen if the Kindle Fire is enough to offset what appears to be a dramatic deceleration of affiliate growth. Meanwhile, Terrapin remains very comfortable with the consumer/Internet/retail trade: short AMZN ( quote ) and long on GOOG ( quote )along with BBY ( quote ) and GLW ( quote ).
Tim Savageaux of Terrapin Research .
Terrapin Research: Terrapin is focused exclusively on the rapidly expanding market for technologies that deliver increased bandwidth over communications networks and the applications and service providers that drive and deploy these technologies. Key drivers include mobile data, digital video and fiber-optic and high-speed copper access.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.