Black Friday

Guess the date of this frenzied Black Friday action description...

By now the broader population has been inundated with reports of what a stunning retail experience Black Friday was. And for those who haven't just head over to CNBC: "Sales rose an estimated 6.6 percent to a record $11.4 billion on Black Friday, typically the busiest shopping day of the year for Americans, while the traffic at stores rose 5.1 percent, according to ShopperTrak. The day's sales growth was the strongest percentage gain since 2007, when sales rose 8.3 percent on the day after Thanksgiving, said Ed Marcheselli, chief marketing officer at ShopperTrak, which monitors retail traffic." This is happening despite the savings rate recently dropping to pre-Depressionary level, and despite revolving consumer credit (as in not cars and colleges), continuing to contract. That there is more than enough fine print will be largely irrelevant for the mainstream media which will naturally trumpet this as the next best thing to the S&P actually rising for once: "More than 120 stores at the Mall of America opened at midnight. The crowd at that point was about 15,000 people. Mall operators estimated that it was the largest crowd ever at the mall, which is big enough to hold seven Yankee Stadiums. While eager shoppers emerged from stores around the country lugging big-screen TVs and bags full of video games and toys, it was far from certain that people will pull out their wallets for much more than the best deals this year. Shoppers with limited budgets started using layaway at chains such as Walmart as early as October. Retail shares fell more than the overall market on Friday. "Americans are still worried about jobs, still worried about the economy," said Mike Thielmann, group executive vice president at J.C. Penney, who noted that shoppers were buying gifts and for themselves, and said jewelry was selling well." Yet what really caught our attention was the Retail Group comparison of this "record" black Friday Weekend. From Bloomberg: 'RETAIL GROUP SAYS SECOND-BEST BLACK FRIDAY WEEKEND WAS IN 2008." As a reminder, Thanksgiving 2008 happened just after a nearly 400 point plunge in the S&P in two months as can be seen in the chart below. Which begs the question: with the world on the verge every single day once again, is it a coincidence that people spent more than they did only compared to 2008 when the world was once again ending. In other words, did Americans really spend "like there is no tomorrow" (more so than ever that is)... and what happens when the bill (because there is no doubt the purchasing was entirely on credit) is in the mailbox?

It's good to be nobody or not so good, because even though nobody took precautions, nobody ultimately took the hit.

You know the economy and stock market are in deep trouble when the Mainstream Media elevates one essentially meaningless metric to "The One Meaningful Statistic" and then trumpets it slavishly. One such meaningless metric is Black Friday. The Media has glommed onto Black Friday for a number of flawed reasons, number one being the MSM's ceaseless drive to reduce all complex problems down to something that can be expressed in a sound-bite voiceover and a video clip of a crowded mall. The MSM loves binaries: two parties, two final contestants, and if Black Friday is "good," i.e. sales exceed last year's consumerist bacchanal, then the economy is "healthy." Any weakening of the consumer's lemming-like drive to buy, buy, buy means the economy is "weak." This is of course absolutely backward: consumers buying shiploads of poor-quality crap made overseas means the economy is still on the slippery slope to implosion, as debt is being used to fund consumption while capital formation (savings) remains pathetic. Since most of the crap (and it is crap--most Americans have either forgotten what actual quality is or they have never experienced it) is made overseas, the "boost" to the economy generated by rampant charge-card consumption flows to only one slice of the the U.S. economy: corporate profits.

30Y rates move more than three standard deviations this week - the greatest move since Black Monday (1987) - as it drops 55bps - hhmm - stability.

When one thinks of gold crashes, one typically visualizes a trading floor from the 1980s onward, predicated by Nixon's nixing of Bretton Woods 40 years ago, which removed gold from the list of accepted currencies and converted it into a government-manipulated pariah, whose core function was to be suppressed in an ongoing (failed) attempt to make the dollar the undisputed reserve currency (something even China comprehends). Well, readers may be surprised to discover that one of the first, and probably biggest on a relative basis, documented gold crashes was not 3 weeks ago, nor back in October 2008, nor any time since the advent of Nixon, or even the Federal Reserve, but over 140 years ago, on September 24, 1869 when a massive gold price manipulation scandal created a financial panic. That day, also known as "Black Friday", was the culmination of an attempt to corner the gold market following the latest, however brief, termination of the gold standard, when during the reconstruction period following the US Civil War, the US dollar was backed not by gold, but simply by credit (sound familiar). The result was a surge, and then collapse in gold.

As we learned working in Mexico in the 1980s and 1990s, the world of debt defaults and fiscal crises inevitably results in strong inflation, but a big part of the inflationary process is perception.  Think of this week as the point in the learning curve when Washington started getting the attention of the entire nation and world -- a year before the next election

Yesterday's ominous selloff (today's very temporary EURUSD, and 100% cross-asset correlation, bounce notwithstanding: after all the data just got even worse courtesy of the Philly Fed, meaning much more pain for the S&P before QE 3 comes) got you a little jittery, with Flash Crashy overtones? You are not alone. Market veteran Art Cashin recounts that yesterday's market action was not so much reminiscent of 2010, or even the 2008 uber-volatile market, but really 1987.

I tend to harvest the internet for interesting stories on Apple as it has become such a bell weather for the capital markets. On a German forum I found the interesting case of Balda which I thought might be of interest.

The shopping day that was supposed to signal the renaissance of the US consumer, and justify the massive overhiring by US retailers (not to mention the completely dislocated from reality surge in stock price for razor thin margin retailers like Amazon), is increasingly seeming to be a dud. WSJ reports, citing channel checker ShopperTrak, that "Black Friday sales rose only slightly from a year ago even though more
shoppers visited stores, retail traffic monitor ShopperTrak said
Saturday, setting the stage for another uncertain holiday season for
retailers. Sales increased 0.3% to $10.7 billion, according to ShopperTrak, which
installs monitoring devices in stores to gauge traffic. Traffic rose by
2.2%, ShopperTrak said." For the observant ones out there, this is in nominal terms: adjusted for inflation there was actually a drop in end sales. Even so, the primary reason for the disappointment is that Black Friday actually started early on in the month, with most retailers offering comparable loss-leading deals such as those seen on the Friday after the national holiday early in November, reducing the actual purchasing power for the all important day. "The smaller than expected increase is due in part to discounts offered
earlier in November as well as online-only promotions, ShopperTrak
founder Bill Martin said. Traffic to stores was up over 6% for the first
two weeks of November, an early boost that could affect retailers'
performance in the coming weeks, he said." Last but not least it should also be noted that with millions of Americans living mortgage payment free for over 18 months now, and using money that should be going to banks (and nationalized GSEs) to instead purchase shoe closet 32 inch TVs, that sooner or later the bulk of American taxpayers who funded yet another top line (but certainly not margin) bonanza for the nation's retailers may soon say enough, and vote against further subsidies of zombie companies whose existence allows for continued US consumer "strength."

Risk sees a very black Friday as trifecta of periphery concerns, Korean tension, and cautious RBA sentiments quell preliminary US holiday retailer optimism. This weekend is shaping up to be quite the significant one as the illiquid holiday markets sold off pervasively, with a flurry of high-volume dumping after-hours in US equity and other risk products.

At last check, MVOL E (total volume of shares on all US exchanges) was running at 3.8 billion shares, putting it on a run rate to close at below half of last Thanksgiving, and in contention for the lowest volume day of 2009: Christmas Eve, when just under 6 billion shares traded. There is nobody trading, and there is no liquidity. The 4 people who are in front of a terminal better pray that Waddell and Reed does not decide to sell a block of ES right about now.

The National Retail Federation has reported that the average Thanksgiving spend has declined from $372 in 2008 to $343 in 2009, as more shoppers sought out rock-bottom 5 am bargains: the estimated number of bargain hunters increased from 172 million to 195 million.

A brutal risk selloff as Dubai seems to have sparked the "sudden" realization that, you know, stimulus just ain't going to do it all.

Sovereign CDS spreads have been widening since the news, rescheduled conference calls did little for investor confidence and U.S. equity futures have crashed (midnight ET was exciting!) on the order of 4% with crude futures are down 5%. Treasury futures have spiked in inverted sympathy (flight to safety). Spot gold, which was as high as $1191 hours ago has sunk to ~$1140. Japan has intervened following the Yen's 14 year high mark. The Swiss National Bank is rumored to be intervening continually to un-defend the Swiss Franc. Quite a morning so far, and it's just beginning.