Black Friday

Did you know that the official site for 'Black Friday' shopping is www.bfads.net.
Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) is the busiest shopping day of the year. The predictions for this year are pretty dire. Saks Fifth Avenue in NYC held sales all week offering up to 80% off. The store was jammed. The majority of stores have excess inventory and are offering historic discounts. Wal-Mart is offering a flat screen television for less than $400. Retailers are trying to reverse the double digit sales declines of the last few months. The stock market will be tracking sales daily until Christmas. I hope for a much better shopping season than expected.

Random thoughts....Look for President-elect Obama to announce his Security team next week beginning with Secretary of State Clinton...after the horrific events in India, Obama will show the world that foreign policy will be just as important as economic policy...The market closes at 1PM today....the rally will probably go for at least one more day......watch the financials for hints....

Waiting for President Obama

As the stock market goes down everyday, it is apparent that the world is waiting for January 20, 2009. The G-20 meeting last weekend agreed to meet in April, 2009 with President Obama. Is it possible for anything positive to happen in the next sixty days? I guess when Obama names his Secretary of the Treasury and informs the market about his upcoming policies. The market looks like it will test 7800 in the next few days. We may be headed to 7200 on the Dow by Friday. I expect retail sales to get better starting on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. Hopefully, people will begin spending with hope for the future. It is Obama's job in the next sixty days to provide this hope.

Random thoughts...Mark Cuban has been charged with insider trading...why would he do this with a balance sheet in the Billions?....Citibank is firing 50,000 employees worldwide...I expect the unemployment rate to be over 8% by January,2009....will GM get money this week? I think so.....but it is easy to predict that GM, Ford,or Chrysler will be history at this time next year...