U.S. Shopping Season
We have first numbers for the Black Friday shopping season start. The number of people shopping increased to 195 million from last’s year 172 million; they have spent $42. 2 billion vs. $42 billion last year which translates into $343 per shopper vs. $372 last year. Nothing new here, the shift to buy discounted merchandise continues. Bad for the retailer margins overall, good for the discounters. Bloomberg story: Holiday Sales to Drop 1% in U.S. as Forecasters See `Discipline.
Chart 1. Black Friday Weekend Shopping Patterns
Source: Conducted for NRF by BIGresearch, November 26-28, 2009. 4985 respondents.
Dubai World story still takes high media interest. United Arab Emirates’ central bank backed the country’s banks by opening a new facility. Rumors are that Abu Dhabi will back Dubai companies on a deal-by-deal basis. Dubai officials claim that Dubai government doesn’t guarantee the loans. It looks to me that some kind of solution will be reached and default technical being avoided with some creditors losing part of their investments. CDS’s on Dubai government debt edged lower. Bloomberg stories: Dubai World’s Debt Not Guaranteed by Government, Dubai Default Swaps Show No Distress on Bailout Bets.
An a nice opinion take on Greece by Greece own minister of finance George Papaconstantinou. WSJ link: The ‘Greek Problem’. My take, they are in a bad shape, the budget deficit is way too high, I will not say that they will default, but the odds are high.