Black Friday on stock exchanges
The name Black Friday dates back to the 1960s and was first used by the police because of the enormous traffic volume in the city of Philadelphia on the day after Thanksgiving. This Friday is now an official holiday in 24 of the 50 American states. It is expected that more and more states will recognise the day after Black Friday as a day off in the coming years. This will enable employees to do some extra cheap Christmas shopping. The popularity of Black Friday has already spread from America to Europe. Especially web shops make good use of this Friday to give their online sales an enormous boost.
The American National Retail Federation expects all sales records to be broken during this “holiday shopping”. The increased inflation due to shortages of products and disruptions in the supply chains have already caused significant price increases in anticipation of the shopping season. Compared to last year, consumer prices have increased by 5 percent. This is the largest year-on-year increase since November 1990. Nevertheless, consumer spending in the United States increased by 1.3 percent in the month of October.
Credit card
Of today’s shoppers, 29 percent are still paying off credit card debt. This concerns approximately 35 million Americans who bought gifts on credit last year. This is remarkable because the corona support cheques issued by the US government ensured that a record amount of 83 billion dollars in credit card debt was paid off last year. Not surprising when you consider that the debit interest rate on a credit card is about 16 percent on an annual basis. According to data from the Fed District of New York, credit card balances increased by $17 billion in the third quarter. According to NerdWallet, the average American spends about $762 on family and friends during the holidays.
Mutant
The fact that we are not rid of the coronapandemic, for the time being, is shown by the exponential increase in the number of infections in South Africa, due to a new variant. The new mutation of the coronavirus is said to differ considerably from the earlier variants. Today, the World Health Organisation (WHO) is meeting to determine how to classify the new variant. The mutant has now appeared in Hong Kong, Israel, and the United Kingdom. South Africa has been blacklisted by several countries and flights are being canceled.
The alarming news is causing prices to fall on the international stock markets. For today, “Black Friday” also applies to stock markets. Whether bargain hunters will benefit today remains to be seen. Perhaps the price drop will continue on Cyber Monday.
