Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : Technical analysis for shorts & longs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Logain Ablar who wrote (45965)	12/9/2009 6:56:27 PM
From: Johnny Canuck	Respond to of 71075

December 9, 2009 12:22 PM PST Black Friday PC sales up, but overall revenue down by Erica Ogg Cheaper average selling prices on items like PCs dragged down Black Friday sales results. (Credit: Dell) Shoppers were out in force during the week of Black Friday, but price cuts brought in less revenue than last year's recession-mired sales, according to a new report. Retail analyst firm the NPD Group on Wednesday released its yearly accounting of technology sales during the week of Black Friday. More than $2.7 billion was spent on TVs, PCs, video game consoles, cameras, and more in the first burst of holiday shopping, but it represented a 1.2 percent decline compared to the same period a year ago. Still, it's better than the previous year's 3.4 percent decline. Retailers will have to blame their discounting practices, since actual unit sales were way up in many categories: PC sales volume increased 63 percent, Blu-ray players were up 53 percent, and GPS units increased by 15 percent. The battle over holiday pricing started even earlier than usual this year, with Amazon.com and Wal-Mart targeting the iPod, Nintendo Wii, HDTVs, and Netbooks with steep discounts, and in some cases, drastically lowered shipping charges. But while retailers so far appear to be having a ho-hum season revenue-wise, there's still several weeks to go before the end of the quarter. And the biggest sellers, like Wal-Mart and Amazon, say that while Black Friday and Cyber Monday are important to their bottom line, their biggest sales days typically come mid-December. Erica Ogg is a CNET News reporter who covers Apple, HP, Dell, and other PC makers, as well as the consumer electronics industry. She's also one of the hosts of CNET News' Daily Podcast. In her non-work life, she's a history geek, a loyal Dodgers fan, and a mac-and-cheese connoisseur. E-mail Erica. [Johnny: I think price is still the key. Job loss have slowed but the overall unemployment rate is still high. Even though things are better here in Canada, most people that I know are taking a cautious stance and not really going out on a limb. The one exception is residential real estate. The look interest rates have inflated prices to peak levels of before the crash of 2008. Given that in markets like Vancouver, it already took 2 people with hgih 5 figure salaries to even afford to service the mortgage on the average $700,000 house with a $250,000 down payment. I don't expect housing prices to see the same increase for the next few years that we saw. They are already warning people to not buy as much as they can afford at todays rates. A 1 percent increase in rates is a 25 percent increase in mortgage payments if at today 5 years rates of 4 percent. Most people can't absorb that and I doubt raises will be reflect that increase in the cost of living anytime soon. ]