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More than $6 billion was spent online on Thanksgiving. (0:16) Wedbush not fazed by FTC focus on Microsoft. (3:41) Canada joins push for Google breakup. (4:04)
The following is an abridged transcript:
Our top story so far, holiday spending so far is reaching record levels as buyers shrug off diminished buying power and stagnant incomes.
Around $6.1 billion was spent online on Thanksgiving Day.
According to the latest data compiled by Adobe Analytics, online spending was up 8.8% from last year, driven by deep discounts on toys, electronics, apparel, appliances, sporting goods and furniture. In just the past week, discounts on toys accelerated to 27.2% by November 28 and increased 26.5% for electronics.
Lead analyst Vivek Pandya says: “As people gathered with family and friends, many were hitting the buy button on their mobile devices, which hit an all-time high for the overall holiday season.”
For the 28 days since the beginning of the month, consumers have shelled out $96.5 billion online.
Top sellers were stuffed animals and board games, Harry Potter-related toys, Tonie Auto Play Figurines, Fischer Price Little People, Minecraft toys and the X Shot Insanity foam dart toy. Popular video games included Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey and EA football games like Madden 2025 and College Football.
Looking to the box office, while it’s still early in the U.S. holiday weekend, Disney’s (DIS) key animated sequel “Moana 2” is setting sail for the box-office record books.
The movie impressed with $57.5 million in domestic grosses on Wednesday, after a preview total of $13.8 million, and added $28 million on Thursday, marking the biggest Thanksgiving ever for a film. This morning, Disney said the film had taken in $109.6 million on a global basis through Thursday.
It’s tracking to some $175 million-plus in domestic box office over the five-day holiday weekend — with Disney staying on the conservative side, but rival studios expecting it could hit $200 million. That’s easily on pace to become the biggest Thanksgiving film ever, surpassing the five-day total of 2019’s Frozen II ($125 million), and perhaps the best five-day opening ever.
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In today’s trading, the major averages finished the shortened trading day and week in the green.
Today, the Nasdaq (COMP.IND) rose 0.8%, leading the S&P (SP500), up 0.6%, and the Dow (DJI), up 0.4%. The benchmark S&P ended the week up more than 1%, finishing above 6,000.
In the bond market, Treasury yields moved lower and after all the moves up on the long end we’re already back in a situation where the yield curve could invert again.
The 2-year (US2Y) and 10-year (US10Y) both sit around 4.20%.
Where from here for the 10?
Piper Sandler says: “The benchmark yield consolidated around 4.35% and 4.50% resistance. Barring a significant reversal of its yearly downtrend, we expect it to retreat toward 4% into year-end.”
Cantor Fitzgerald says; “We think longer end bond yields will move higher due to our short term economic view, deficit concerns, and importantly a fed cutting into the current backdrop creates inflation risks.”
Among active stocks, news of an investigation by the FTC into Microsoft (MSFT) is “not a worry” with Chairwoman Lina Khan likely to depart, according to Wedbush Securities.
Analyst Dan Ives said: “For Microsoft, which has already been through its battle with the US Government, we believe this FTC suit is much more bark than bite and ultimately will fade into the background once a new FTC chair is likely named.”
Meanwhile, Canada is joining in the antitrust enforcement wave against Google (GOOG) (GOOGL), suing the tech giant over anticompetitive conduct in the advertising technology market.
Canada’s Competition Bureau has filed suit with the Competition Tribunal seeking remedies including forcing Google to sell two of its ad-tech tools, as well as paying a penalty and restricting further anticompetitive practices.
And Applied Therapeutics (APLT) plunged 75% in the first trading session after the company announced the FDA had declined to approve its drug govorestat for the treatment of classic galactosemia, a genetic disorder.
Applied Therapeutics disclosed the FDA rejection after market close on Wednesday, sending shares into a nosedive in post-market trading. The company plans to request a meeting with the agency to discuss a potential appeal of the decision or resubmission of the application.
In other news of note, Meta (META) is planning to build a nearly 25,000-mile fiberoptic subsea cable that will go around the world, and the investment in the project could top $10 billion. That’s according to TechCrunch.
Meta will be the sole owner and user of the subsea cable and the infrastructure, but it is still in its early stages.
The subsea cable would give Meta a dedicated pipe for data traffic around the world when it is finished. The planned route of the cable currently sees it spanning from the east coast of the U.S. to India via South Africa and then to the west coast of the U.S. from India via Australia — making a “W” shape around the globe,
And in the Wall Street Research Corner, with the focus on shopping, Goldman’s consumer sector desk outlined three winner-loser consumer discretionary trades, with the sector underowned.
Consumer sector specialist Scott Feiler says that the average consumer is neither “so strong” that all companies are outperforming, nor “so weak” that there is fear of a correlated selloff. Investors should “dig under the surface” for single name stocks compared to ETFs, as “dispersion will continue to dominate.”
He lists “winners vs. losers,” a theme he believes will accelerate through the end of the year and continue in 2025.
Walmart (WMT) vs. Dollar General (DG)
“Walmart (WMT) hit ‘escape velocity’ on market share this year, at the expense of dollar stores,” Feiler said. Walmart is also one of the least concentrated names among hedge funds.
Ross Stores (ROST) vs. Kohl’s (KSS)
Ross Stores looks cheap at 20x and despite “a decent negative weather impact in 3Q, the company was able to outperform with tailwinds into 2025.”
Kohl’s is trading at March 2020 lows and has continued to struggle.
ON Holding (ONON) vs. Skechers (SKX)
On Holding is growing its direct-to-consumer footprint at more than 50% year-over-year and its light spray technology, hitting in the second half of next year, “should be (A) large boost to revenues.”
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