What happened to Black Friday?
For weeks before Thanksgiving, there was great anticipation for the results of consumer shopping on Black Friday. The figures would indicate whether we were coming out of the recession or not. It seemed like this data was a most important factor, anxiously awaited by economists, investors, and government.
And then, the subject disappeared. It is more than 2 weeks after Black Friday, and there has been no big news on major media about what happened. I had to search through dozens of links, only to find a few small mentions of the results on blogging sites. And the news was not good. “All the hope and hype that went into Black Friday preparations this year didn’t give us much.” “Worries about the momentum from Black Friday fading through the holiday season are even tougher, now that we know there isn’t much momentum on which to rely. Shopper traffic was heavy this year,
according to ShopperTrak, which led to much of the early optimism. But, the lookers weren’t converting at the rates retailers had hoped.”
I don’t know which is worse, the weak sales data, or the fact that this news was largely swept under the rug by major news outlets. To be fair, let’s give them another chance. Reuters is writing about the anticipation now for the results from “Super Saturday.” “Bargain-hunting shoppers are expected to flood stores on “Super Saturday” weekend — the last before Christmas — and deliver retailers the highest holiday weekend sales so far this season.” Let’s see if we hear anything about this on Monday.
To their credit, the major news media is starting to get on the story of “shadow inventory.” I have written about this 8 times over the past year, as early as February 4th. The LA Times has a front page article today with an excellent description of this looming crisis. “Shadow inventory properties are homes that have not been tallied into official inventory numbers tracked by Realtors and other real estate professionals.”A variety of measures to keep discounted bank-owned properties off the market — including moratoriums on foreclosures by major lenders and federal initiatives aimed at keeping people in their homes with mortgage payments they can afford — has helped increase a backlog of so-called shadow inventory 55% in the year ended Sept. 30, according to a report released Thursday by First American CoreLogic, a Santa Ana-based real estate research firm. “Some are strategically holding property off the market and are only putting it back on in dribs and drabs,” said Stuart Gabriel, director of UCLA’s Ziman Center for Real Estate. ”They’re playing this interesting game where, on one hand, they need to liquidate these properties, but they can’t create a downward implosion in prices that will come back and bite them even harder.”
You should keep an eye on the news media, and how their stories play out. Remember, this is the same journalistic machine which proclaimed the recession to simply be a “Myth.” Less than two years ago, you would be finding reporting such as this: “The news media have generated a lot of fear. Ben Stein has a point when he says “The actual economic conditions are not that bad. I think if we have a recession, if we have a serious recession, a great deal will lie at the media’s feet.” “…the media and politicians have said we were in a recession even while the economy was still growing.” “A little perspective on the economy would be helpful.” “The media’s focus on the negative side of everything surely helps explain people’s pessimism. In a recent interview Fox’s Neil Cavuto claimed this bias “is all part of the media’s plan to get a Democrat in the White House.”
No offense, because hindsight is 20/20, but this point of view turned out to be a little off.
