After seeing strong sales from Black Friday, retailers have even more to be merry about this holiday season. Cyber Monday showed promising results for the start of the holiday retail season, with online merchants reporting over 4 million shoppers per minute, in North America. While in itself no guarantee of profitable season, it certainly bodes well for better than expected sales.
Shoppers are out in great numbers, but reports show they are more being more selective with their purchasing. More people are paying with cash and debit cards and using their credit cards very sparingly. Not such a surprise, after the credit card companies pulled such a fast one on consumers and jacked up interest rates and fees to beat the new credit card laws to take effect next year. Personally I've sworn off credit card purchases until they come up with better offers. I'm not paying anyone over 20% interest for anything! I'd like to loan them some money at that rate!
I liked Warren Buffet's predictions for the new year. Especially the one about "people mistakenly thinking falling stock prices are bad." Falling stock prices to me mean I can purchase shares of my favorite stocks on sale! So it's not always bad to have falling stock prices, think opportunity knocking instead.
Bob Doll, one of the most respected investors you'll find and Vice Chairman at Blackrock, is predicting a choppier market in 2010, but predicts we'll still see some gains. I'm thinking he's right on the money here.
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