Black Friday

With Black Friday sales plunging and Cyber Monday growth slowing, it appears the chicken of stagnant wages and debt-saturation are coming home to roost for a massacred middle-class America. However, as WSJ reports "we are buying less stuff," because the basic costs of necessities such as healthcare, food eaten at home, rent, education, and cellphones have surged. Overall spending for the group rose by about 2.3% over the six-year period from 2007, even as inflation totaled about 12%.

Prepare to hear much more of the "retail spending slowed down because the economy is just too strong" excuses today, used most hilariously by the NRF on Sunday to explain the unprecedented 11% collapse in the 2014 4-day holiday weekend spend, when pundits "justify" why Cyber Monday sales were only the latest proof the US consumer - that 70% driver of US GDP - is being crushed day after day, pardon, basking in the warm glow of America's centrally-planned golden age. Here are the facts: Internet holiday shopping rose only 8.1% on Cyber Monday yesterday, usually the busiest day for Web shopping as people return to their desks after the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday weekend. This was a big miss to expectations, and is less than half then growth posted just last year, when online sales grew at 17.5%, according to IBM.

Once again the cyclical patterns in US macro data are re-emerging as extrapolated hopes fade into mean-reverting credit-impulse-hangover-driven realities. Despite all the hopes and dreams of escape velocity, cleanest-dirty-shirt-wearing economic enthusiasts, year-to-date performance of Citi's US Macro Surprise index is at its lowest level since 2008. Whether this is absolute weakness or relative weakness (versus yet more over-enthusiastic expectations) is unclear though, the Midterm election results and NFR Black Friday spending data may be a hint.

With a third of S&P 500 capital expenditure due from the imploding energy sector (and with over 20% of the high-yield market dominated by these names), paying attention to any inflection point in the US oil-producers is critical as they have been gung-ho "unequivocally good" expanders even as oil prices fell. However, as Reuters reports, new data suggests that the much-anticipated slowdown in shale country may have finally arrived - permits for new wells dropped 15% across 12 major shale formations last month, as one analysts warns, "the first domino is the price, which causes other dominos to fall."

• Moody’s Downgrades Japan’s Credit Rating (WSJ)
• China Factory Gauge Drops as Shutdowns Add to Slowdown (BBG)
• Euro zone factory growth stalls in November as new orders sink (Reuters)
• Espírito Santo Faces Money-Laundering Investigations (WSJ)
• Oil at $40 Possible as Market Transforms Caracas to Iran (BBG)
• Hong Kong warns protesters not to return after clashes close government HQ (Reuters)
• Bond Secrets Decoded 9,539 Miles From Wall Street in Lot (BBG)
• Ruble Rally Turns to Rout as Fortunes Tied to Sinking Oil (BBG)
• Loans Made in Blink as Banks, Funds Vie for LendingClub Clients (BBG)

Another day full of global macroeconomic disappointments is certain to send the S&P500 to all time-higherest records as 100,000 or so E-mini contracts exchange hands between central banks and Citadel's algos.

For most people "a deal to die for" is just a saying, but tragically for a 22-year-old woman who was working in a Chicago Nordstroms off North Michigan Avenue it became all too real when she shot during Black Friday shopping and died a day later, in what according to initial reports was a domestic-related incident leading to a panicked stampede out of the store by holiday shoppers who were convinced they were caught in the latest Chicago consumerism-gone-wild crossfire.

There was much hope for America's struggling brick-and-mortar retail outlets that aided by plunging gasoline prices, Americans would come out in droves to chase Black Friday (and increasingly Thanksgiving) blockbuster deals on the ground across America's increasingly troubled shopping malls and retail outlets. And while there was the usual hysteria on select occasions (see this post for video evidence), for yet another year American shoppers spent slightly less money during Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday than across the same two days in 2013, according to research firm ShopperTrak. Sales at brick-and-mortar retail stores came to about $12.29 billion on Thursday and Friday, a 0.5% decrease to the $12.35 billion spent during the same two days last year.

What happened to Americans?

You can’t force people to spend, not if you’re a government, not if you’re a central bank. And if you try regardless, chances are you wind up scaring people into even less spending. That’s the perfect picture of Japan right there. There’s no such thing as central bank omnipotence, and this is where that shows maybe more than anywhere else. And if you can’t force people to spend, you can’t create growth either, so that myth is thrown out with the same bathwater in one fell swoop. Some may say and think deflation is a good thing, but I say deflation kills economies and societies. Deflation is not about lower prices, it’s about lower spending. Which will down the line lead to lower prices, but then the damage has already been done, it’s just that nobody noticed, because everyone thinks inflation and deflation are about prices, and therefore looks exclusively at prices.

Because nothing gives "Thanks" like Americans fighting over things they don't need...

In 2013, 186,000 people were allowed to buy weapons without a background check at all, according to the AP, after the FBI was unable to process their applications within the legal window of three days. This year demand is even higher...

Because nothing says "spend on Black Friday" like a fractionally positive Dow Jones Industrial Average closing in the green with a last minute surge that gets its from red to just barely green... and completely unrigged. 

Despite the best efforts of business media to paint a rosy picture of the Black Friday spend-fest, stocks had only one trajectory - from upper left to lower right - from the open. Small Caps were slammed but all major indices gave up significant knee-jerk "energy schmenergy" gains to close ugly. However, The Dow was pushed just into the green - and new record highs - to prove everything in the centrally planned world is awesome. Crude oil prices were monkey-hammered to 5-year closing lows. The USDollar gained on the day - after 3 down days - and combined with Swiss referendum expectations, gold faded notably (as did Silver with oil). Treasury yields tumbled 10-12bps on the week and HY credit notably underperformed.