The Long Term Investor

A very minimal market day today.....that probably no one cares about. The markets will ONLY be open for about 4.5 hours today.

Just after the open it is a mixed market with the DOW in the green....the SP500 basically flat.....and the NASDAQ in the red.

Nothing new and........who cares. I doubt that anyone on Wall Street is working today.

BUT.....it is Black Friday.....the kick off to the Holiday shopping season.

 

Speaking of Black Friday.

Annual Reminder: Black Friday Is No Economic Barometer
Holiday sales hog headlines but aren’t all-telling.

https://www.fisherinvestments.com/e...eminder-black-friday-is-no-economic-barometer

(BOLD is my opinion OR What I consider important content)

"Dear readers, it is nearly time for that great November sporting event. No, not the Buffalo Bills at the Detroit Lions. Nor the New York Giants taking on the Dallas Cowboys or the New England Patriots suiting up against the Minnesota Vikings. Nor are we referring to the “other” football’s World Cup or international Test cricket. No, we are talking about the most competitive of all: Black Friday shopping. Every year, the advertised discounts flood our inboxes. And every year, some local news station grabs fresh footage of shoppers trampling each other for “doorbusters.” And every year, headlines hype it as the biggest, most telling test of America’s consumer-driven economy, and they parse the final tallies for clues. We have never been fans of this practice and have long encouraged people to downplay Black Friday. This year, we suspect it is even less useful than usual as an economic barometer.

Our typical reasons for not reading into Black Friday still stand. Though headline-grabbing, it is but 1 day of one of 12 months in a year. It has also morphed more into a season than a day: In years past, we have started seeing holiday deals early in October. That front-running has waned somewhat this year, but many discounts have still been running for over a week now, likely inspiring many folks to buy early to avoid the dreaded “sold out” placards. Discounting also runs well into December, and we have it on good authority that plenty of holiday shopping happens during that month, often with even deeper discounts than the markdowns Black Friday is reputed to feature. So if you like using the holiday season as an economic check-in, you probably have to wait for December’s retail sales figures to hit the wires in January. Perhaps that is useful in a backward-looking sense, but it will be no help in forecasting the economy, never mind forward-looking stocks. Whatever holiday demand is now, it will largely be a function of the economic conditions already in place—it will likely tell us little about how those conditions change in the future. Besides, spending on physical goods is just over one-third of consumer spending. Holiday sales won’t tell you about spending on services, which is the vast majority.

This year, holiday sales watchers will have to deal with another question: What constitutes a “good” result? Ordinarily, a modest increase over the prior year gets high marks. But the annual inflation rate is still running rather high, notching 7.7% y/y in October. Does year-over-year holiday sales growth have to top that to avoid a failing grade? Or, what about the fact toy prices are up only 3.1% over the past year while televisions are down -16.5% and book prices are flat?[ii] Holiday shoppers may have a lot more wiggle room than headline inflation suggests.

What if consumers actually manage to buy higher volumes of goods by shopping around, trading down and hitting discount stores? An insightful Washington Post piece published last weekend delved into this, highlighting anecdotal reports from major retailers as well as local artisans. One New York jewelry maker said her order volumes are up nicely from last year, but for smaller-ticket items—think bracelets in the low three figures rather than tennis bracelets for thousands of dollars.[iii] So, is that a good or bad year for her? If the margins are largely the same across her price range, it could very well be better. And if businesses broadly are catering to price-conscious consumers, a ho-hum total dollar sales figure could belie a strong season in terms of volumes and, potentially, earnings.

That raises another point: Retail isn’t some monolithic block. Think about all the shiny wrapped parcels you and your family exchange in any given year. There might be a videogame console, books, jewelry, clothes, a nice handbag, limited-edition basketball shoes, this year’s “it” toys, board games, electronics and—if your kids are really lucky—a microscope or rock polishing kit. Even within clothes and accessories, there might be items from major retailers and rare finds from local makers or vintage sellers. The sheer breadth of Americans’ shopping choices makes it impossible to determine winners and losers from headline tallies alone. A good year for booksellers may be a bad one for videogame makers. (Not a prediction—just a hypothetical example.) A bad year for Bullock’s or Gimbels might be a great one for boutiques or online artisans.[iv] Or maybe that luxury purse was a (metaphorical) steal at a discount chain that sourced it for pennies on the dollar, not a top-dollar splurge at the mall. Clarity on all of this won’t come until Q4 earnings season, which arrives well into the next Q1—again, backward-looking.

But take heart, there is good news: Whatever happens this holiday season, markets are already dealing with it and probably have been for a while. That is the nature of these forward-looking beasts. They reflect economic activity well before the corresponding data hit the wires. For one rather clear-cut example, think back to February and March 2020, when stocks managed to discount the entirety of COVID lockdowns’ economic destruction before we had even one official data point attempting to measure the damage. That is amazing efficiency—it is also markets’ day job, and they are good at it.

If you rely on holiday sales to inform your economic expectations—and use that to make investing decisions—you are trading on events that stocks have already priced in. If we were analogy people, we would say something about rearview mirrors and curves on the road ahead. Black Friday and holiday sales figures are merely a backward-looking marker. An interesting sign of where we have been, perhaps, but not indicators of what comes next."

MY COMMENT

I do expect that we will see good Christmas and Holiday shopping numbers this year. There is way too much money out there, not to.

Of course.....the primary thing we will see.....is the obsessive media focus on the next 5 weeks of retail numbers.....and.....the usual fear mongering and selective cherry picking of the data.

In the end......we will have to wait till it is all over to see the.....TRUE.....data without all the advance media opinion and speculation. If we have a good result.....it might serve as a kick off to better markets in 2023......at least psychologically.

 

HERE......is the REAL focus and message of this thread.

Are you addicted to Investment Porn?
The hidden dangers for your portfolio

https://onveston.substack.com/p/are-you-addicted-to-investment-porn

(BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content)

Hi Everyone,

"In today's article, I would like to remind you of one of the biggest enemies an investor faces: Investment Porn.

What is Investment Porn? It’s media statements that make investors believe that anyone can become a millionaire in a short time, even with a small amount of start-up capital. From my point of view, however, the statements aiming in the opposite direction also belong to this area, particularly those of the Crash-Prophets. You rarely get rich quick on the stock market. And then only by taking high risks and having a lot of luck. One of the main reasons why investors lose their money is unrealistic expectations, which are reinforced by the absurd circus of financial media. There is actually hardly any meaningful information in the media on the subject of securities markets. Most of it serves to increase sales figures for all kinds of products related to investing. The latest opportunities, megatrends, price targets, and the like are constantly being predicted.

Magazines can do this, but the problem is that Investment Porn is not just useless, but extremely harmful. It appeals to our emotions and arouses fear and greed, the biggest enemies of an investor. It encourages quick and ill-considered action and is therefore one of the biggest return killers. Timeless investment principles that can make investors wealthy when applied correctly don't make for clickbait headlines.

Here are some of the most common misleading “methods”:

• Wrong benchmarking. “This Australian mining stock has beaten the SPY 0.20%↑ by 324%.”
  
  
• Showing nominal returns instead of real returns. Trading costs, inflation, and taxes are real costs that lower investor returns, they rarely are mentioned. Passive investors often fall victim to that, as I explained in this article.
  
  
• Risks are played down or completely neglected.
  
  
• “Price Targets”. (I really don’t know how so many pundits come up with such absurd statements)
  
  
• The hype around countries and sectors.
  
  
• Wrong backtesting. Often used to promote products/funds that worked well during “certain” periods of time.
  
  
• “The big crash is coming”. If you are a perma-bear, sooner or later you will get it right.
  
  
• “Buy NOW or miss out.”
  
• “This Guru is buying xyz stock.”
  

Almost everything that is constantly announced in newsletters from banks and financial advisors, business magazines, and most of the internet should, like every pack of cigarettes, carry a warning: Caution, the use of this information endangers your financial health.

No one wants to hear that they can earn 10-13% annual returns over a 10-20 year period with a proven and, above all, old strategy. Most people do not have the patience for this and are simply too arrogant to learn the basics and apply them over time. That is why Investment Porn is so widespread and successful. If you knew where to find Gold, would you sell the map so others can find it?

Do you want to know the final boss of Investment Porn? Finfluencers (financial influencers) from social media, especially YouTube. Their job is not to give you any good advice or even insights from their investing experience (most don’t have any). Their job is to keep you hooked on their content so they make thousands from ad revenue (because that’s their main income source, not stocks).

This explains the eye-catching thumbnails and clickbait titles. Here are just two examples I found after typing in the search box: What stocks to buy?





Profit Big; High Growth; Buy Now; Rich AF etc. are tactics from the toolbox of emotional manipulation, as I explained a few sentences prior. Another investing mistake that those examples promote is trying to time the market. There is no such thing as a “best recession stock” that will make you rich. Investing is a constant process and if done right, you simply find less good price/value opportunities at the end of an economic cycle and more of them at the beginning of one. That’s it. If you have a strict selection, you invest less when prices are high and find more bargains when prices are low. This is your protection against market turmoil. But to learn this requires patience, which most investors lack.

Final thoughts
Successful investing is boring. It’s a framework that you repeat over and over again and, as time passes, you start seeing results. You stay away from stocks that don’t fit the classic investment criteria and add those that fit. There is little excitement in reading annual reports and analyzing businesses, hence so many choose the “exciting” way - and lose in the end. Every quarter most companies report their result and management gives you guidance on what you can expect in the coming quarters. They tell you how inflation and interest rates affect the business and what to expect. No need to listen to pundits who have no skin in the game."

MY COMMENT

It is.....NOT amazing.....that you hear and see the same advice over and over about being a long term investor and picking realistic investments. That is actually what has been PROVEN to work.

It is also.....NOT amazing.....that many people can not stand to follow such a simply strategy to success.

 

After nearly an hour stocks are trying to make a move UP. The SP500 has now gong slightly green and the losses have moderated in the NASDAQ.

History shows holiday trading favors the bulls: Morning Brief

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/holiday-trading-santa-claus-rally-morning-brief-101511316.html

(BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content)

"Rise and shine deal-hunters!

For those who slept off their tryptophan hangovers and are not running headlong into a phalanx of Black Friday deals just yet, a half-day of potential "deals" awaits in the stock market.

Yes, volume is expected to be low, and volatility has already trailed off the year's elevated levels heading into the holiday.

But the truncated Black Friday session has presented some opportunities over the years to those investors willing to sidle up to the markets table.

Only last year, the post-Thanksgiving session witnessed the Dow suffering its worst day of the year, as a new COVID variant dubbed omicron first entered the scene. WTI crude oil crashed 13% that Friday — its biggest drop since trading negative in the early days of the pandemic.

If we dial back the markets clock to Thanksgiving 2009, as the world was still reeling from the Global Financial Crisis, we find plenty more volatility to go around.

Early Black Friday morning in 2009, risk markets were selling off hard, as a deal to save Dubai's sovereign debt hung in the balance. U.S. stock futures were down 2% as Europe began its trading day. But an eleventh-hour deal roused investors' risk appetite. The day closed green and the lows wouldn't be revisited for over two months.

And back in 2014, a surprise deal from OPEC to keep oil production levels unchanged sent oil prices towards multi-year lows over the Thanksgiving and Black Friday trading sessions.

To be fair, outsized price movement on these Fridays is the outlier. The norm is a low-volume, low-range day that's part of a larger, bullish seasonality leading into February.

Jeff Hirsch at The Stock Trader's Almanac has been writing about these trends for decades. (His father, Yale Hirsch, first discovered and wrote about the Santa Claus Rally in 1972.)

Hirsch has found that November to January is "the year's best consecutive three-month span." This year, this period also falls within what Hirsch dubs the "sweet spot" of the four-year presidential cycle — from the fourth quarter of the midterm year through the second quarter of the pre-election year.

Putting it all together, here are the stats for a long trade spanning from the Tuesday just prior to Thanksgiving through the second trading day of the new year, which encompasses the narrowly-defined Santa Claus Rally.

Since 1950, the S&P 500 has posted an average gain of 2.65% over this period, with a median increase of 2.40%. During the average winning period, the index is up 3.78% and down 2.01%, on average, when the market drops. For the Russell 2000, the average gain is 3.38% and the median return is 3.57%; during the average winning period, the index gains 4.98% and loses 2.69% during the average losing period.

During this period, the S&P 500 sports an 80.6% win rate, and the Russell 2000 a 79.1% win rate. Not bad for bulls looking for some consolation in this year's market.

Hirsch notes this is an unusual year given the the 15.5% drawdown seen for the S&P 500 so far this year. And while the major indices are unlikely to claw back the losses so far this year, the bullish seasonality still exists.

As Hirsch writes: "The fact that November 2022 is up so far is supportive for continued upside.""

MY COMMENT

This is a good companion article to the one above about "investment Porn".......LOL.

I like the end of the article that I did not post......it is titled...."What to Watch today". The answer is.....

Economy

• Black Friday. No notable reports scheduled for release.

Earnings

• Black Friday. No notable reports scheduled for release.

That pretty well sums up the day today......at least for LONG TERM INVESTORS.......and yes......I continue to be fully invested for the long term as usual.

 

SORRY......I have to post this little article because I find it so funny.

The IRS says its 87,000 new hires could help collect as much as $1 trillion — by forcing tax cheats to pay up. But will more 'fire-breathing dragons' really do the trick?

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/irs-says-87-000-hires-120000616.html

(BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content)

"Get ready, ultra-wealthy Americans: President Joe Biden wants you to start paying your share.

Through the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden plans to increase funding for the IRS to help the agency catch sneaky tax evaders — especially those high-earners who love to find loopholes around the law.

A Treasury Department report from May 2021 estimates the extra money would allow the agency to hire around 87,000 new employees — which could include revenue agents and customer service and IT staff — by 2031.

Advocates believe the increased funding could raise as much as $1 trillion by forcing tax cheats to pay their dues, especially after years of budget cuts have gutted the system.

However some critics worry the increased scrutiny on taxpayers could backfire in a big way.

The IRS desperately needs the support

The $80 billion in funding spread over the next 10 years will help the IRS modernize its infrastructure, increase enforcement and replace its aging workforce (50,000 of the IRS’s 80,000 workers are expected to leave in the next five years).

The agency has reportedly been underfunded by about 20% for a decade — leading it to cut back on both staff and technology updates.

Bogged down by a processing system that’s more than half a century old and a backlog that includes millions of unprocessed paper filings, the IRS has been in need of more resources and support for a while.

The customer service department has been woefully short-staffed as well. During the 2022 filing season, the IRS received around 73 million phone calls from taxpayers — but only 10% were actually answered.

"The combination of more than 21 million unprocessed paper tax returns, more than 14 million math error notices, eight-month backlogs in processing taxpayer correspondence, and extraordinary difficulty reaching the IRS by phone made this filing season particularly challenging," national taxpayer advocate Erin M. Collins wrote in her midyear report to Congress.

On top of these issues, former IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig estimated in 2021 that the agency is losing $1 trillion in unpaid taxes each year — particularly due to evasion from the rich and big businesses. He also indicated they could be slipping through the cracks in part due to the lightly regulated cryptocurrency market, foreign source income and abuse of pass-through provisions.

Rettig has long pushed for increased funding “to bring on the fire-breathing dragons” to take cheaters to task.

Could bolstering enforcement do more harm than good?

Supporters argue the funding will help close the “tax gap” by helping catch more evaders.

From the total $80 billion, $45.6 billion has been allotted for increased enforcement — which will go toward hiring more enforcement agents, providing legal support and investing in “investigative technology” to determine who should or shouldn’t be audited.

But not everyone is thrilled with the news.

“They’re not going to get this ‘magic money,’” Brian Reardon told Bloomberg. Reardon is the president of the S Corporation Association, which represents small, privately-owned businesses that pass taxes onto their shareholders.

“If you dial up enforcement on people who are otherwise following the rules and paying what they owe, you create resentment and anger. You undermine people’s confidence in the tax system.”

However, the Biden administration maintains that the increased enforcement will be focused on the ultra wealthy and large corporations, and isn’t intended for small businesses or households who earn less than $400,000 a year.

Research from the Department of Treasury indicates that the top 1% of Americans could be dodging as much as $163 billion in taxes each year.

That being said, while Eli Akhavan, a partner at Steptoe & Johnson in New York, expects audits will go up, he’s been telling his wealthy clients they “have nothing to worry about other than some headaches,” provided they’re following good advice and have their “ducks in a row.”

“If there’s nothing to find, there’s nothing to find,” Akhavan says."

MY COMMENT

The continuing MYTH of the big tax cheats.

NO.....the odds of the.....INCOMPETENT.....IRS bringing in more money from mythical tax cheats is about the same as the odds of the postal service making a profit......ZERO.

The ability of people......even if they wanted to.....to cheat the tax system are extremely limited. Deductions have been gutted, reporting of everything is now rampant. Most people simply take the standard deduction, etc, etc, etc. No doubt.....the IRS after all this money and hiring.....will be the same incompetent agency that is always is. Nothing will change.

 

CARRY ON..........and have a good day. I will check back in at the close.

 

Oh yes.....one final post at the moment....for the Historical Record.

On Wednesday I did pick up my latest painting acquisition. It was brought to my area by the El Paso picker that found it for me about a month ago.

It is now up on the wall. Hanging it triggered a 9 painting game of......."musical walls".

 

Another day in the markets gone. I was in the RED today....mild. I also was not able to beat the SP500....losing out by 0.49%.

A good end to a short week. We are now down to the FINAL FIVE weeks of the year. Time is running out for the markets.....now it is simply a question ow how big or small the loss for the year will be. I ACCEPT IT.....as simply part of the process of being a stock investor and having the ability to compound long term gains.

 

We are now going to see if we get a year end rally or not. The DOW....still.....has a shot at ending the year positive.

(NUMBERS BELOW are for the four day short week.)

DOW year to date (-5.48%)
DOW for the week +1.78%

SP500 year to date (-15.53%)
SP500 for the week +1.53%

NASDAQ 100 year to date (-27.97%)
NASDAQ 100 for the week +0.69%

NASDAQ year to date (-28.24%
NASDAQ for the week +0.74%

RUSSELL year to date (-16.75%)
RUSSELL for the week +1.17%

YET another positive week for the markets. This was one of those weeks that was a stealth week. The numbers turned out better than I thought. I like the way the markets are settling-in over the past 4-6 months.

 

I have my usual show this weekend. BUT......this one is actually indoors. A nice little 150 mile drive....nothing, by my standards.

 

By the way......I will be out of touch next week and will probably not be posting much. You guys keep things going......and....take care of our money and the markets.

My poor portfolio......I dont know what it will do without me.

 

I am OBVIOUSLY......NOT...... fan of any Chinese stock or companies doing manufacturing or other business in China other than selling goods. This is the prefect example of what yu get doing business with and in China. the bad news for Apple.....even if they move out of the country at this point.....China will simply continue to make I-Phones and there will be nothing that Apple can do.......or.....will do. This is what happens when you do business and bend down to the worlds most brutal communist dictatorship.

Apple has a huge problem with an iPhone factory in China

https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/25/tech/apple-foxconn-iphone-supply-china-covid-intl-hnk/index.html

(BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content)

"Hong Kong CNN Business —
A violent workers’ revolt at the world’s largest iPhone factory this week in central China is further scrambling Apple’s strained supply and highlighting how the country’s stringent zero-Covid policy is hurting global technology firms.

The troubles started last month when workers left the factory campus in Zhengzhou, the capital of the central province of Henan, due to Covid fears. Short on staff, bonuses were offered to workers to return.

But protests broke out this week when the newly hired staff said management had reneged on their promises. The workers, who clashed with security officers wearing hazmat suits, were eventually offered cash to quit and leave.

Analysts said the woes facing Taiwan contract manufacturing firm Foxconn, a top Apple supplier which owns the facility, will also speed up the pace of diversification away from China to countries like India.

Daniel Ives, managing director of equity research at Wedbush Securities, told CNN Business that the ongoing production shutdown in Foxconn’s sprawling campus in the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou was an “albatross” for Apple.

“Every week of this shutdown and unrest we estimate is costing Apple roughly $1 billion a week in lost iPhone sales. Now roughly 5% of iPhone 14 sales are likely off the table due to these brutal shutdowns in China,” he said.

Demand for iPhone 14 units during the Black Friday holiday weekend was much higher than supply and could cause major shortages leading into Christmas, Ives said, adding that the disruptions at Foxconn, which started in October, have been a major “gut punch” to Apple this quarter.

In a note Friday, Ives said Black Friday store checks show major iPhone shortages across the board.

“Based on our analysis, we believe iPhone 14 Pro shortages have gotten much worse over the last week with very low inventories,” he wrote. “We believe many Apple Stores now have iPhone 14 Pro shortages … of up to 25%-30% below normal heading into a typical December.”

Ming-Chi Kuo, an analyst at TF International Securities, wrote on Twitter that more than 10% of global iPhone production capacity was affected by the situation at the Zhengzhou campus.

Covid outbreak

Earlier this month, Apple said shipments of its latest lineup of iPhones would be “temporarily impacted” by Covid restrictions in China. It said its assembly facility in Zhengzhou, which normally houses some 200,000 workers, was “currently operating at significantly reduced capacity,” due to Covid curbs.

The Zhengzhou campus has been grappling with a Covid outbreak since mid-October that caused panic among its workers. Videos of people leaving Zhengzhou on foot wentviral on Chinese social media in early November, forcing Foxconn to step up measures to get its staff back.


To entice workers, the company said it had quadrupled daily bonuses for workers at the plant this month. A week ago, state media reported that 100,000 people had been successfully recruited to fill the vacant positions.

But on Tuesday night, hundreds of workers, mostly new hires, began to protest against the terms of the payment packages offered to them and also about their living conditions. Scenes turned increasingly violent into the next day as workers clashed with a large number of security forces.

By Wednesday evening, the crowds had quieted, with protesters returning to their dormitories on the Foxconn campus after the company offered to pay the newly recruited workers 10,000 yuan ($1,400), or roughly two months of wages, to quit and leave the site altogether.

Opportunity for India

In a statement sent to CNN Business on Thursday after the protests had wound down, Apple said it had a team on the ground at the Zhengzhou facility working closely with Foxconn to ensure employees’ concerns were addressed.


Even before this week’s demonstrations, Apple had started making the iPhone 14 in India, as it sought to diversify its supply chain away from China.


The announcement in late September marked a major change in its strategy and came at a time when US tech companies were looking for alternatives to China, the world’s factory for decades."

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year that the company was looking to boost production in countries such as Vietnam and India, citing China’s strict Covid policy as one of the reasons.

Kuo said on Twitter that he believed Foxconn would speed up the expansion of iPhone production capacity in India as a result of Zhengzhou lockdowns and resulting protests.

The production of iPhones by Foxconn in India will grow by at least 150% in 2023 compared to 2022, he predicted, and the longer term goal would be to ship between 40% and 45% of such phones from India, compared to less than 4% now."

MY COMMENT

Even though I own Apple stock........I am glad to see this happening......the only way we will get these American companies to stop giving their tech and business away to China is if they get screwed by the Chinese in their bottom line. It is ASININE that this company is giving their business and technology to China. They are getting what they deserve for management malpractice and stupidity on this issue.

And.....notice that the company they are using to manufacture in India......yep......it is STILL the Chinese company Foxconn. What a bunch of morons.

 

YESTERDAY.......at the end of the day the financial media was in full on.....fear mongering mode.....about Black Friday. the crowds did not appear......stores were empty....no one was shopping. DUH.......people tend to shop online now. HERE is the real story of Black Friday.

Black Friday online sales to hit record despite high inflation -Adobe Analytics

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/thanksgiving-sales-overcome-inflation-gloom-150421493.html

(BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content)

"(Reuters) -U.S. online spending is expected to set a record for Black Friday, according to Adobe Analytics, as steep discounts lured consumers against the backdrop of high inflation, kicking off the year's biggest shopping event on a strong note.

Initial numbers from Adobe Analytics, the data and insights arm of software company Adobe Inc, showed shoppers are expected to spend between $9 billion and $9.2 billion online on Friday, topping its forecast for a modest 1% rise to $9 billion.

As of 6 p.m. EST (2300 GMT) on Friday, Adobe data showed shoppers spent an estimated $7.28 billion online.

"E-commerce demand has remained strong regardless, and Black Friday is set to surpass $9 billion in online sales for the first time, as consumers come to value the ease and convenience of shopping from home," said Vivek Pandya, lead analyst at Adobe Digital Insights.

"Some shoppers are returning to physical stores for Black Friday, after two years where pandemic-related anxieties kept many people at home," Pandya added.

Adobe Analytics, which measures e-commerce by tracking transactions at websites, has access to data covering purchases at 85% of the top 100 internet retailers in the United States.

Adobe's analysis covers over 1 trillion visits to retail websites; Adobe does not disclose the names of the company sites it tracks.

Early holiday deals, including a second Amazon Prime Day event in October, were expected to take some of the shine off the biggest shopping days of the year.

More Americans placed orders through their smartphones over the holiday, with mobile shopping expected to drive 53% of Black Friday online sales. Mobile orders accounted for 55% of online Thanksgiving sales.

Cyber Week, which runs five days from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday, is expected to generate $34.8 billion in online spending, up 2.8% from the year-ago period, according to the report.

"As Black Friday discounts transition to being pre-Cyber Monday discounts, we expect online spending momentum to continue through the weekend." Pandya said.""

MY COMMENT

The coverage in the financial media was just pathetic. BUT.....the truth always comes out.