Black Friday Helps U.S. Stock Market
Right now, there are plenty of deals to be had. Indeed, this year Black Friday has exceeded itself. And the stock market responded positively today in a half-session. Many retailers are offering extended sales, two day Black Friday affairs that are expanding into Saturday. Some retailers even have been running sales since yesterday. On Thanksgiving. Others started the deals on Wednesday, allowing the deals to mount and culminate today (usually at some obscene time, like four or five in the morning).
At any rate, the hope is that the extended sales will draw even more people into stores over this weekend, getting things started off “right” for the holiday season. And it may work. There is thought that if enough people get out there and “stimulate the economy”, then it will help the stock market and boost the confidence of the American consumer. (And, with that confidence the hope is that the American consumer will in turn spend even more.) SalesBlog.com explains the implications of Black Friday rather well:
If you plan to do any holiday shopping, then for the sake of the economy, do it tomorrow. See Black Friday, or the Friday after Turkey Day is a day of judgment. If the day proves to be healthy to the retail market, the Dow Jones will sky rocket over the next week, confidence will rise, and consumers will spend even more money on the holidays. If the days outcome is gloomy, the Dow will plummet and people will horde what they have in fear.
A lot is being done this year, Black Friday aside, to ensure that the consumer can keep spending — preferably using debt. This is the latest focus of TARP. If consumers can keep getting loans and extended credit, then they will keep spending money, boosting profits and stock prices and keeping the engine humming. The efforts by retailers and the government to kick start this holiday shopping season are monumental.
But we’ll have to wait until Monday — and a full stock market session — to see how well things have worked.
November 28th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
[…] market news by unknown « Daily Market Recap - Friday, November 28, 2008 : […]