BONUS BLURB: Bad Black Friday, worse Cyber Monday
Q4 '22 is shaping up to be one of the worst horse races since 2008/09
This is just a quick blurb about something else I intend to speak to more fully in the coming weeks as the earnings calls happen and the numbers come in. Suffice it to say, according to retail indicators, Q4 ‘22 was somewhere in the “we’ve fucking had it” category for retail sales and ecommerce/tech, near the top - but not quite the same as the ‘29 crash. The impacts will still be incredible in their scale.
Last week, Macy’s announced that their Q4 earnings would be “lighter than expected”, and that they saw overall sales down in Q4, though Black Friday and other significant shopping days remained reasonable compared to years prior. This one report does not yet make a trend, but it follows the pattern largely speculated on by traders over the last year, and has been marked by comparatively sluggish growth rate in the retail/ecommerce and tech sectors, pointing to a period of recession in the longer term.
Tech and other retail/ecommerce outlets are showing other signs of financial contraction, with many laying off or not continuing seasonal contracts and reducing overall employee count as we head into January. Some companies began layoffs last year, others have started doing so in the past week.
If you thought 2022 was bad, buckle up buckaroo, because 2023 is about to get sincerely ugly.
—RS