The Daily Breakdown looks at the recent records set on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, as well as the rally in Ethereum.
Friday’s TLDR
Holiday shopping hits records
Ethereum powers toward $4K
The Bottom Line + Daily Breakdown
Perhaps not surprisingly, 2024’s Black Friday to Cyber Monday stretch was another record-setter for the holiday season. Even as this year’s holiday shopping window is a bit shorter than usual given the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, it’s still expected to be a strong period for online and in-store retailers.
According to the National Retail Federation: “The five-day holiday weekend from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday saw an estimated 197 million shoppers…The figure is the second highest number in the survey’s history after last year’s record of 200.4 million, and surpassed NRF’s initial expectations of 183.4 million shoppers.”
From November 1 through year-end — what the NRF defines as the “holiday season” — they expect record sales between $979.5 billion and $989 billion, up 2.5% to 3.5% from 2023’s tally.
Finally, Adobe Analytics said that consumers had spent $13.3 billion online on Cyber Monday, marking the single biggest online shopping day of all-time. That’s up 7.3% from last year’s Cyber Monday and topped the $10.8 billion figure that was hit a few days prior on Black Friday.
World of Retail
First, it should be mentioned that it’s not too surprising to see record holiday sales during this stretch in 2024. Various markets and assets are at or near all-time highs — like the S&P 500, Bitcoin, gold, etc. — the economy is humming along, the jobs market is in good shape, and perhaps most notably, retail sales trends have been solid for several months in a row now.
That’s not to say some people aren’t struggling or that inflation has suddenly vanished. But overall, the consumer remains in pretty good shape when it comes to spending.
In terms of categories, clothing and accessories were a key focus for shoppers, as were toys. That could be a benefit to retailers like Target, Walmart, Abercrombie & Fitch, and Costco — although the stocks may not react like it. Others like Best Buy and Amazon are assumed to have had a big weekend, as well.
Additionally, “Buy Now, Pay Later” options saw about $1 billion in activity, according to Adobe Analytics. That should be a positive for companies like PayPal and Affirm, among a few others.
Lastly, about 63% of online Cyber Monday purchases were made on a mobile device, up almost 15% year over year.
The Bottom Line: Holiday shopping isn’t the defining measure of how consumers are doing or how they’re feeling. But it does show that, for as many worries as 2024 has had, the US keeps on rolling along and consumers keep on spending. Until that train comes to a halt, the US economy can keep on chugging along.
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The setup — Ethereum
Everyone seems to be focused on Bitcoin’s rally through $100K — and with good reason — but who’s watching Ethereum’s move toward $4,000?
The second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap has quietly rallied 61% over the past month (conveniently, that’s since the election). That’s actually better than Bitcoin, which is up an impressive 45% in the same span.
Now, ETH is above the key downtrend resistance level we pointed out in late November.
If ETH can maintain momentum, bulls will likely look for a potential rally to this year’s high, up near $4,100. If ETH can clear that, perhaps even more upside could follow.
On the downside, bulls will want to see Ethereum find support at some of its prior resistance levels. Most recently, that was the $3,400 to $3,600 zone. That level has the added benefit of now containing prior downtrend resistance too (the blue line on the chart).
If ETH pulls back to this area and holds prior resistance as current support, that could be an opportunity for the bulls.
Disclaimer:
Please note that due to market volatility, some of the prices may have already been reached and scenarios played out.
