Market Insights: Record U.S. Thanksgiving Weekend

Market Insights: Record U.S. Thanksgiving Weekend

In yet another sign that the US consumer is still alive and well, despite the current short-term market turbulence, online sales shattered records in the most important shopping weekend of the year south of the border.

According to reports from Adobe Analytics, Black Friday pulled in a record $6.22 billion in online sales, up 23.6% from a year ago. It was also the first day ever to see more than $2 billion in sales stemming from smartphones. Then on Cyber Monday, online sales this year surged to new highs, with a record $7.9 billion spent online that day, an increase of 19.3% from a year ago.

Meanwhile, foot traffic at brick-and-mortar stores on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday were down 1.0% this year. It definitely appears that more people are getting comfortable with making buying decisions online rather than at a desk. 

Look, you could spin this data anyway you like, but instead of getting bogged down in the day-to-day figures, we prefer to focus on fundamentals, and those fundamentals remain very strong. Total retail sales are likely to be up 6%+ this year over last year. That's very strong indeed.

Also, recent measures of consumer confidence and small business confidence remain elevated even though we are currently in a corrective phase. US labor markets are very healthy, and wage growth is now starting to accelerate at an annual pace we haven't seen in 10 years. The consumer, the producer, the entrepreneur and the entire economy still seem to be very much intact from our lens. We continue to be positioned longer-term on the basis that the positive fundamental backdrop for equities remains in place and that US recession risk remains relatively low.