Happy Black Friday to all! Here are some fun tidbits to share with your loved ones Do you know how the name “Black Friday” originated? Can you guess which services industry claims Black Friday as its busiest day of the year? Where did Cyber Monday sales numbers come in last year? In today’s Black Friday edition of the Digest, since the markets are shutting down early (and everyone is shopping anyway), let’s have some fun. Specifically, let’s look at some entertaining Black Friday and Cyber Monday factoids. If you’re tired of turkey, football, or relatives, here’s your escape. Happy belated Thanksgiving to you and yours! Everything you don’t know about Black Friday…but should The original “Black Friday” dates to September 24, 1869. That’s when Jay Gould and Jim Fisk tried to corner the gold market. Neither individual was exactly a pillar of virtue, but Gould especially was ruthless, having earned the name “The Mephistopheles of Wall Street.” In short, their scheme was discovered by President Ulysses Grant, who subsequently released huge gold reserves to offset the run-up in price caused by Gould and Fisk. This caused gold’s price to plummet in a matter of minutes. The stock market plunged as well, bankrupting or inflicting massive financial damage on some of Wall Street’s most respected firms. Thousands of speculators were ruined financially – and at least one committed suicide. Okay, with that heartwarming origin story out of the way, let’s turn to the more modern “Black Friday” origin-story. The common legend is that the Friday after Thanksgiving was actually named “Big Friday.” Black Friday was a tongue-in-cheek term originating from the Philadelphia police department. Allegedly, the cops began using the name in the mid-1970s, describing the traffic congestion and smog caused by holiday shoppers venturing out for holiday shopping. While used in Philly for nearly two decades, the term didn’t become popular on a national scale until the 1990s. Now, History.com, refutes this story. It claims that Philadelphia police used the term "Black Friday" in response to a different source of traffic chaos. Can you guess what it was? College football. Apparently, the annual Army-Navy football game held on the Saturday after Thanksgiving was a massive event. As this version of the story goes, throngs of fans drove into Philadelphia on “Black Friday,” leading to a traffic nightmare. | Recommended Link | | | | You’ve heard the stories of investors scoring huge profits off AI stocks over the course of several months. How about making it happen in a few hours? Jonathan Rose just revealed how his “zero-day options” can turn even a mere 2% move in the AI-fueled Nasdaq into gains of 200%… 856%… 1,113%… even 5,000% in one day… And in his just-released free training session, he’ll show you exactly how to use this surprisingly simple strategy yourself. Watch the training session here. |  | | Regardless of whether we can thank shopping or football for the atrocious traffic, here are a few more random Black Friday/Thanksgiving weekend factoids for you Black Friday only became the biggest shopping day of the year starting in 2001. Prior to that, can you guess which day held the title? It was the Saturday before Christmas, beating Black Friday every year. Another question – can you remember in which year retail stores changed policy and began opening on Thanksgiving night? We can thank (or blame) Walmart for that back in 2011. It became the first major retailer to open stores on Thanksgiving evening, leading to a new name – Gray Thursday. Now, I must warn you, the following two trivia questions push the envelope a bit. Brace yourself… How many Black Friday shoppers are drunk? Yes, you read that right. RetailMeNot reports that the answer is 12%. This suddenly puts all those Black Friday fights into a different light. For the second questionable piece of trivia, which services industry claims Black Friday as its busiest day of the entire year? Plumbing. As crazy as it sounds, CNN reported that plumbers are busiest the day after Thanksgiving because they’re needed to clean up after guests who “overwhelm the system.” Here are a few more Black Friday factoids for you, courtesy of Printful.com: - Over 90 million consumers shopped online on Black Friday in 2023 (which is 95% of the pre-pandemic level).
- Jewelry and apparel were the top gift categories on Black Friday in 2023.
- Black Friday remains the biggest online shopping day, generating $70.9 billion worldwide
- Online sales are predicted to take 7% of in-store shopping sales on Black Friday this year.
- In 2023, Black Friday online sales in the U.S. reached a record high of $9.8 billion, an increase of 7.5% from the previous year.
- An eyewatering 1.83 billion promotional emails were sent out on Black Friday last year.
- In 2023, 17% of all end-of-year holiday orders were influenced by AI, totaling $19 billion.
Turning to online sales, what’s the origin of Cyber Monday? Cyber Monday only dates to 2005. It was conceived by the National Retail Federation to encourage people to do more online shopping. Now, have you ever wondered why Cyber Monday is “Monday” and not, say, Cyber “Saturday”? Back in 2005 when the shopping day was conceived, the internet was far slower than it is today. So, far more people did their online shopping from work rather than home (I’m guessing due to both faster connections at work, as well as a greater willingness to waste employer’s time than personal time). As a result, in the early days of online shopping, most digital sales came on the Monday after Thanksgiving. Even now, 95% of employees admit they’ll shop while at work on Cyber Monday. Now, from a shopper’s perspective, what’s the difference between Black Friday and Cyber Monday? Is one better than the other for certain types of deals? From Business Insider: A solid rule of thumb is that Black Friday is a better time to buy newer, big-ticket items. It's also the best day to shop in stores, though you can also shop online. Cyber Monday is a better day to shop for tech deals and smaller gifts. You'll also see slightly better discounts online. So, how big is Cyber Monday? Last year, 73.1 million people shopped online on Cyber Monday. As to dollars spent, that translated into U.S. consumers dropping $12.4 billion. Here are some other fun facts about Cyber Monday from ExplodingTopics.com: - S. shoppers stepped up their buying activity by 512% on Cyber Monday (compared to an average day).
- Nearly 90% of the top 50 online retailers offer Cyber Monday discounts.
- The average American will spend about $650 between Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Finally, we couldn’t end this Digest without some overarching spending statistics from the entire “Cyber Week” of 2023. These come courtesy of MobiLoud: - More than half of all Americans shop online or in-person during Cyber Week.
- Cyber Week saw 134.2 million shoppers purchase goods online vs 121.4 million headed out to the stores.
- The online spend for Cyber Week came in at $38 billion.
- Consumers shelled out $15.7 million – per minute – during peak spending on Cyber Monday.
- The average order value for November of last year was 2.7% higher than November in 2022.
- Don’t like shopping in stores during Cyber Week because of the crowds? If so, that’s the same reasons that 52% of non-shoppers provide.
- The top two in-person shopping destinations last year were Target and Walmart.
- A staggering 88% of people will shop on Amazon during Black Friday weekend.
Forgive us for ever questioning the health of the U.S. consumer here in the Digest! | Recommended Link | | | | As incredible as it may seem, the greatest stock-trading secret in history is hidden in the last place most people would ever think to look. In fact, this scientific-phenomenon was discovered back in 1962, when award-winning mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot was studying Great Britain’s coastline. Since that time, the “magic pattern” has help deliver a slew of shocking wins in history, including Paul Tudor Jones’ $100 million Black Monday windfall. If you’d like to put this dominant trading-asset in your back pocket, I suggest you go here now for the fascinating story. |  | | A quick reminder before we sign off… On Tuesday, master trader Jonathan Rose held his One-Day Winners Live Summit in which he showed attendees how to maximize potential gains — and minimize risk — when trading short-term options (including zero-day options — which can list and expire on the same day). He even gave away his #1 short-term option trade, down to the ticker. (It’s a way to leverage tech and AI for potential triple-digit gains in one day. He revealed all the details during the Q&A session toward the end of the presentation.) To catch a free replay of Tuesday's event and learn more, just click here. Finally, a big “thanks” to you As we wrap up, let’s borrow a Thanksgiving tradition that’s popular with many families around the nation – taking a moment to be intentional about saying “thanks” for something that we’re grateful. Speaking for the Digest and InvestorPlace at large, we’re thankful for you. We appreciate your letting us partner with you to help you achieve your investment goals. It’s a pleasure to do our best to help you become a wealthier, wiser investor. All the best to you and yours. Happy Black Friday, Jeff Remsburg | 
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