- Commentary -

December 1, 2009 (FinancialWire) (By Philip Holmes) — Black Friday confirmed analysts’ (low) expectations, while Cyber Monday is a bit of a scam to begin with. Will great deals at Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) and eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) entice consumers to spend like there’s no tomorrow? Apparently not, but stocks rose anyway. Call it Goofy Tuesday.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 34.92 points, to close at 10,344.84, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index saw a rise of 4.14 points, to end at 1,095.63. The Nasdaq Composite Index was also up, by 6.16 points, to finish at 2,144.60.

What gives? Black Friday, the traditional kick off to the holiday shopping season, was a bust. According to the Wall Street Journal, citing National Retail Federation numbers, the overall shopper turnout was up slightly versus last year, “But the average spending for that period fell to $343.31 per person, from $372.57 last year.”

Must be that 10% official unemployment figure, or maybe the lower wages, or perhaps the shrinking credit lines. You think?

Cyber Monday is the new retail grail. Online shopping is now such a big part of the retail picture it has its own big day. And, according to Shop.org, about 100 million Americans are expected to shop online on Monday. That would beat last year’s online turnout of 85 million shoppers.

But Cyber Monday isn’t really the biggest day for online shopping; that will come later in December, closer to Christmas. So, the whole thing is a bit of a scam meant to distract the world from the crappy Black Fridays we’ve been having.

But logic doesn’t seem to matter in the Street these days, so spend away! If you were one of the lucky several million buying Amazon on Monday, you saw your baby rise by nearly 2%. Auctioneer eBay was up by 3.4%. And the receipts haven’t even been counted yet.

Happy Goofy Tuesday.

[Go to http://www.financialwire.net/?s=philip+holmes to see more commentaries by Philip Holmes.]

The FirstAlert(tm) Economics Calendar lists Weekly Chain Store Sales (8:55 a.m.), Construction Spending for October (10 a.m.), ISM Index for November (10 a.m.), Pending Home Sales for October (10 a.m.), Auto Sales for November.

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Happy Birthday: King Louis VI of France, Alexandra of Denmark, Rex Stout, Stansfield Turner, Lou Rawls, Lee Trevino, Bette Midler.

Today in History: Hans Christian Andersen published first book of fairy tales in 1835. Ford Motor Company introduced the first moving assembly line in 1913. Iceland became a self-governing kingdom in 1918, but remained united with Denmark. American Civil Rights Movement: In Montgomery, Alabama, seamstress Rosa Parks refused to give her bus seat to a white man in 1955 and was arrested for violating the city’s racial segregation laws, an incident which leads to the Montgomery Bus Boycott. In 1998, Exxon announced a US$73.7 billion deal to buy Mobil.

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