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Strategies & Market Trends : Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mishedlo who wrote (17062)	11/29/2004 10:21:27 AM
From: zonder	Respond to of 116555

10:15 (Dow Jones) Shoppers were busy on Black Friday as consumers spent over $4.1B on Visa branded payment cards, up 15.5% from last year, according to Visa's Holiday SpendTrak report. More and more shoppers were opting for online gifts with E-commerce showing the greatest sales volume growth of 28.1%. That was followed by department and apparel and discount, mass apparel and drug stores with 15.7% sales volume growth each. Home and garden shopping was up 15.6% and travel and entertainment sales volume grew by 12.9%. Debit card use grew by 21.6% over 2003 and credit card use was 10% from a year ago. (SPJ) 9:32 (Dow Jones) J.P. Morgan is out with some post-Thanksgiving observations from the hardline retail front, offering some perspective amid the excited chatter over solid Black Friday sales. "Overall, we noted a few trends from our checks that are worth monitoring heading into the rest of the holidays. HDTV demand looked to be relatively muted at the (consumer electronics) retailers and overall CE inventory levels looked high exiting the weekend," the firm says. "Consumers looked very focused on promotional items, with ancillary purchases seeming somewhat weak," JPM adds. "Door busters" drove traffic early Friday at CE retailers, but traffic dropped as the weekend progressed. Home furnishing retailers had "relatively steady traffic throughout the weekend," JPM says. (JHS) 9:18 (Dow Jones) Some highlights from Goldman Sachs' online checks of the major apparel retailers: Gap (GPS) sale activity rose, with around 50% of adult Gap brand items on sale (36% last year) and average markdowns of 39% (37% last year); Old Navy markdowns were similar to last year; Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) sale activity down significantly, with only 27% of total items on sale (45% last year) and average markdowns of 18% (30% last year); Hollister markdowns similar to last year and remain low; American Eagle (AEOS) had around 64% of total items on sale (77% last year) with average markdowns of 23% (32% last year). (NPB)