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Jan 12, 2024, 1:00 am EST
The Magnificent Seven had an extraordinary year in 2023—one that will be very difficult to repeat. And there will be a new Magnificent Seven in 2024.
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Tired of college football? Got a little cabin fever after all that time with loved ones? We get it.
As the holiday season comes to an end and a week of work and/or school is staring you in the face, you’ve got one last day to get out. And the good news is… there are plenty of places to get to.
Whether you’re looking to hunt down some last-minute bargains or catch one last movie, there are a lot of options. Hours will vary, of course, and it’s always a good idea to call first to confirm your local stores are open.
Here’s a look at places you can—and can’t—go.
7-Eleven
Acme
Albertson’s
BJ’s Wholesale
Food Lion
The Fresh Market
Giant Food Stores
Harris Teeter
Kroger
Pavilions
Publix
Ralphs
Safeway
Stop & Shop
Super King Markets
Vons
Wawa
Wegmans
Whole Foods
Winn-Dixie
Trader Joe’s
You’ve pretty much got your choice of places to shop. With the holiday sales rush over and spring wardrobes about to hit the racks, many stores will be offering some deep discounts.
Among the stores that will be open are:
Bass Pro Shops
Belk
Best Buy
Big Lots!
Cabela’s
Dick’s Sporting Goods
Dollar General
Five Below
GameStop
Gap
Home Depot
Lowes
Macy’s
Marshall’s
Michael’s
Old Navy
PetSmart
Target
T.J. Maxx
Victoria’s Secret
Walmart
World Market
Costco
Sam’s Club
No. New Year’s Day is a federal holiday, meaning banks will be shut down. As always, online transactions and ATMs will be available, though no deposits will be credited to your account until at least tomorrow.
There won’t. Since it’s a federal holiday, the U.S. Postal Service will not deliver mail to homes as usual, even though it’s a Monday. UPS and FedEx will also take a day off.
It’s not. The stock market observes New Year’s Day as a holiday, so the New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq and bond markets will all be closed.
Again, no. Because it’s a federal holiday (and a state holiday), you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to get your driver’s license renewed or talk with the IRS.
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Chris Morris
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The world’s first legal sale of recreational marijuana happened in Denver on Jan. 1, 2014. In fact, it happened twice.
Mason Tvert was managing the onslaught of media that descended on the Mile High City to witness the historic moment, set in motion by the successful legalization campaign he’d led. So many camera crews and reporters showed up that morning that Tvert decided to rotate two groups through the dispensary’s sales floor — with each transaction billed as the first time anyone 21 or older could legally buy weed simply by walking into a store, showing ID and paying for it, no doctor’s note necessary.
Cannabis enthusiasts also flocked to downtown Denver that day. Lines outside the new rec stores stretched down city blocks. Buyers exited with purchases in hand, holding them overhead like victory trophies. Rumors even swirled that some stores had sold out, only adding to the fervor.
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Tom Hymes
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Updated Dec 27, 2023, 7:34 am EST / Original Dec 27, 2023, 4:26 am EST
Stock futures traded slightly lower Wednesday after the S&P 500 finished higher Tuesday and just 0.45% below its record close of 4,796.56 hit Jan. 3, 2022. The broad market index has risen 24% this year and has gained 4.5% this month as traders bet the Federal Reserve will begin cutting interest rates as soon as March.
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“Mass advertising can help build brands,” longtime Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz once prophesized, “but authenticity is what makes them last.” As corporate cheerleading goes, this is an enduring fable. Authenticity has become a central moral framework in society–the subtle yet pervasive value that animates and adjudicates our media, culture, and politics. Merriam-Webster recently announced that “authentic” was its 2023 word of the year, thanks to a surge in online search queries.
Consumers have long sought authenticity, as it gets stamped on a range of goods and experiences made attractive largely because they appear to lack marketplace motives. The mom-and-pop diner; the vinyl record shop–the local and uncommercialized. Think dive bars, farmers markets, and indie cinemas.
Studies find that consumers rate independent, family-run outposts more authentic than chains–and even shrug off hygiene code violations if a hole-in-the-wall seems sufficiently off the beaten path. Authenticity also beckons tourists, pointing toward paths less traveled such as Cuba, Bhutan, or Burning Man.
Scholarly articles about authenticity more than doubled in the 2010s and leading pollster John Zogby found that it topped the list of Americans’ cultural yearnings.
“You have aspirational positioning from every brand out there to want to make their offering feel bespoke and handcrafted and unique,” one marketing COO quips. “The fact of the matter is that there’s tens of thousands of others of that [product] pumping out every single week.”
That quest for authenticity is, in short, a quest for uniqueness amidst homogenous mass production. Today’s consumers seek what one philosopher-critic called “aura”–a singular product relative to the readily replicable. Social theorist Andreas Reckwitz diagnoses consumers as in thrall to “singularities”–distinctive objects, spaces, and experiences that fulfill cultural desires rather than functional needs that assembly lines once simply satisfied.
Franchising, in particular, embodies McWorld alienation as corporations implement formulaic operations that erode local character: nondescript office parks, suburban tract homes, and casual dining chains. Most can’t preserve nuance at the massive scale that profit demands.
The more sameness is offered, the more consumers go searching for something real to grab onto and discover themselves within. Call this the identity politics of the shopping cart.
As a concept, authenticity hatched in response to 18th– and 19th-century industrialization. Humanity’s relationship with machines became disenchanted, not just at work–where efficiency, automation, and quantity dominated values–but also with this logic spilling into consumer experiences.
Although authenticity cannot be found in Victorian-era vocabulary about merchandise, by 1908 Coca-Cola was already pitching itself as “genuine”–part of manufacturers’ efforts to persuade that their brand was more natural and traditional than fellow factory-line products filling home shelves. This rhetoric intensified in recent years.
Take Starbucks, which has long tried to reproduce the “aura” of that cute, little indie coffee shop in your neighborhood–some 55,000 times over. Its brand guidebook reportedly mandates five ideals that had to apply to every design choice: handcrafted; artistic; sophisticated; human; and enduring. These seek to convince you that this Starbucks is truly unique and special, unlike the (same) one a block away.
Hence, the interiors’ aesthetic accentuation–earth hues, wicker baskets, curvy motifs, stained woods, unfinished metals–all to contrast the prepackaged synthetics that envelop fast food. Hence, too, the customer’s name read aloud rather than an automated receipt number–simulating rituals of familiarity and tradition.
Starbucks doesn’t become globally ubiquitous if it can’t fake authenticity in this fashion, even if being globally ubiquitous inherently invalidates that.
The authenticity ideal is artisanal craft, romantically conjuring premodern labor untainted by massive machinery. Goods that are “handmade” in “small-batch” as opposed to cash-grab; shelves that are curated, not commercialized.
Origin stories also authenticate, seeking to make a company genealogically trustworthy by emphasizing a point or person of provenance. Think Ben & Jerry’s here, or the naïve moral authenticity of any amateur startup tinkering in a garage for love rather than money.
Research suggests that a company’s founding intent matters a great deal to consumers: If seen as “self-transcendent” (i.e., for society or community) rather than for “self-enhancement” (wealth or status), the brand scans authentic. Greed, for lack of a better word, isn’t good at conveying that.
Authenticity also explains a recent swing toward vintage aesthetics–campaigns, slogans, and logos from yesteryear dusted off and trotted out, from Pizza Hut’s red roof icon to Miller Lite’s throwback font: “Brands want to say, ‘We’re still that same company with humble roots,’” one brand strategist explained. “So [they] reverse-engineer that value to an audience that may not be privy to a backstory.”
This, then, is the ultimate contrivance: For a century, corporations have tried to sell us they have a “soul.” As one advertising creative director rhapsodizes, “Brands have to have a voice; they have to have character; they have to have morals.”
To that end, Dunkin’ Donuts shortened the name on its (11,000-plus) outlets to just “Dunkin’” to “highlight how the brand was now on a first-name basis with fans,” even giving away “handmade friendship bracelets” to commemorate the copyright registry.
To be sure, there is something understandable, yet lamentable, in that notion. You can’t be friends with an LLC, yet anthropomorphism remains the central delusion of branding. Authenticity is, after all, a nostalgic reflex. We yearn for it most in times of rapid change. Much as industrialization generated a longing for agrarian simplicity a century ago, today’s high-tech landscape–one of AI chatbots and digital deepfakes–generates much the same wistfulness for a world being lost.
Michael Serazio is an associate professor of communication at Boston College and the author of, most recently, The Authenticity Industries: Keeping it ‘Real’ in Media, Culture & Politics.
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.
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Michael Serazio
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As sneaker makers try to stay relevant amid waning demand, Nike Inc. executives on Thursday said they were banking on “newness and innovation” to win over reluctant shoppers. And as sales deals on shoes proliferate, they said interest in its sneakers that cost over $100 is still solid, and that an expansion of its Jordan brand — beyond basketball gear and shoes — represents an opportunity to boost profits.
But one analyst on Friday cast doubt over whether those plans will work for all of Nike’s
NKE,
customers in the long term.
“Nike needs improved marketing outside of basketball, streetwear and lifestyle trends,” TD Cowen analyst John Kernan said in a research note on Friday. “Innovation at the higher end of its assortment is not resonating at scale while . . . Nike faces disruption from smaller competitors in footwear and apparel. Jordan brand moving into lower price points and away from a scarcity model creates risk to the fastest-growing piece of the business.”
That assessment came after Nike’s quarterly results and dimmer outlook after the market close on Thursday sent shares reeling. Management said that consumers were still cautious, as higher prices for essential goods siphon away what they can spend on new sneakers and clothes.
Following the results, TD Cowen analysts on Friday downgraded the stock to their version of a hold rating. CFRA, meanwhile, also lowered its opinion on the stock to sell from hold.
Shares of Nike were down 11.6% on Friday.
During Nike’s fiscal second quarter, sales trends were shaky in both the athletic-gear maker’s digital channels and its markets abroad, executives said Thursday. In North America, sales slipped 4% year over year. For the holidays, sales were softer outside of the big discount days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. And competition from the likes of Adidas
ADDYY,
Deckers Brands
DECK,
subsidiary Hoka One One and running-shoe maker On Holding
ONON,
hasn’t gone anywhere.
Nike’s results, Kernan said, were a sign that Wall Street’s profit estimates were too high for Adidas and other competitors like Vans owner VF Corp.
VFC,
and Under Armour
UA,
On the company’s earnings call Thursday, Nike said it didn’t plan on getting sucked into a “race to the bottom on digital,” where weaker online traffic forced more markdowns. But like Kernan, Raymond James analyst Rick Patel also had questions about Nike’s efforts to push full-priced product.
“Nike noted that it intends to focus on full-price selling and doesn’t want to participate in aggressive discounting,” he said. “Also, it aims to manage inventories for key franchises more carefully going forward in order to avoid the promotional fray, which also limits sales growth. We view these as the right moves to protect the health of the brand, but also acknowledge that it leaves Nike at a near-term competitive disadvantage to drive revenue.”
CFRA analyst Zachary Warring, in emailed commentary, said some of Nike’s other rivals could cut into demand.
“Although Nike maintains a fortress balance sheet with significant capital returns, we believe the multiple will trend back down to pre-pandemic levels as the company faces competition from brands like Hoka and On [Holding] while it looks for new growth drivers and focuses on cutting costs,” Warring said.
Nike executives on Thursday said Jordan-branded clothing and products for golf, soccer and football, along with products for women and children, would bring stronger results. They said the same for bras, leggings, retro-themed running shoes and other offerings in its business geared toward women.
The company also announced plans to save up to $2 billion over the next three years. That savings effort, it said, could include simplifying its product selection, bringing more automation into its operations, and “streamlining” the company by shedding management layers.
Nike has reportedly already begun laying off workers. The company on Thursday said it expected to book pre-tax restructuring charges of around $400 million to $450 million “primarily associated with employee-severance costs.”
Nike plans to reinvest those savings back into the company. But as the company tries to fatten margins, Jefferies analyst Randal Konik said those reinvestments could do the opposite.
“We would expect [management] to reinvest a majority of these cost savings, likely leaving less margin and earnings ‘cushion’ should top-line performance continue to soften over the next 6-12 months,” he said.
In recent years, Nike has been trying to sell fewer items through outside retail chains and more through its own stores and online channels. But executives on Thursday said that multiyear effort had created “complexity and inefficiencies”
Edward Jones analyst Brian Yarbrough told MarketWatch that Nike is likely cutting costs after weighing the broader economic backdrop and weakness in its digital business against its sales and margin goals.
“Combined with a slower revenue-growth environment — and the fact that digital, which is their more profitable channel, is slowing and in some markets declining — I think they probably said, ‘If we’re going to get there, it’s probably going to have to come with some cost cuts,’” Yarbrough said.
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Shares of Nike Inc. tumbled after hours Thursday after the athletic-gear giant warned of a “softer second-half revenue outlook” on its quarterly earnings call, and said it is targeting up to $2 billion in cost cuts over the next three years as it looks to shed management and focus on women customers and its Jordan brand.
Nike
NKE,
said that the savings could come from simplifying its product selection and using more automation and technology. But the athletic-gear giant has also reportedly begun to lay workers off, and said it expected to book pre-tax restructuring charges of around $400 million to $450 million, much of it in the company’s fiscal third quarter, “primarily associated with employee-severance costs.”
Nike did not immediately respond to questions about job cuts at the company, or how many staff have been or could be laid off. But on the company’s earnings call, management said its plans included “reducing management layers.”
In Nike’s earnings release, Chief Financial Officer Matthew Friend said the company’s fiscal second quarter — in which per-share profit beat expectations while sales were roughly in line — marked “a turning point in driving more-profitable growth.”
But investors appeared skeptical after hours on Thursday, as shares slid more than 11%.
Nike announced the cost-cutting drive as clothing and shoe brands try to steer through weaker demand overall and a broader price-cutting battle in retail stores for inflation-battered customers. Those customers have had to set aside more money to cover the costs of ever-pricier essential goods, at the expense of things like sportswear and sneakers.
“We are seeing indications of more cautious consumer behavior around the world in an uneven macro environment,” Friend said during the call.
Nike executives said consumer demand was strong through the back-to-school season, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but lagged in between. Demand wobbled online, and in China and Europe.
They also said that the money they planned to save would be reinvested into helping Nike become more nimble and more responsive to consumer preferences, after years of shifting away from selling shoes and gear through traditional retail chains in favor of doing business through its own stores and e-commerce channels. They added that those efforts “added complexity and inefficiencies” as competition grew steeper.
Chief Executive John Donahoe said on the call that the Nike-brand women’s segment was already a $9 billion business. But he said new products — like bras, leggings, retro-themed running shoes and other offerings that span both sports and lifestyle — would help draw more women customers.
Within the Jordan category, Donahoe cited opportunities beyond basketball sneakers. Clothing and golf-, soccer- and football-related products, along with offerings targeted toward women and children, would also help drive growth, he said.
But for the rest of its fiscal year, Nike’s expectations were dimmer. The company said it forecasted “slightly negative” sales growth for its fiscal third quarter. For its fourth quarter, executives expect low-single-digits sales gains. And they said they now anticipate Nike’s full-year sales to increase around 1%, compared to an outlook in September for mid-single-digits gains.
In its fiscal second quarter, which ended on Nov. 30, Nike reported net income in the period of $1.58 billion, or $1.03 a share, compared with $1.33 billion, or 85 cents a share, in the same quarter last year. Revenue rose 1% year over year, to $13.4 billion.
Analysts polled by FactSet expected adjusted earnings per share of 84 cents, on sales of $13.39 billion.
Gross margin rose to 44.6%, helped by price increases and lower costs for ocean-freight shipping.
Outlooks this year from athletic-gear retailers like Foot Locker Inc.
FL,
and Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc.
DKS,
have also been cautious, and Nike has faced competition from the likes of Adidas
ADDYY,
and On Running
ONON,
Nike management also said in their previous earnings call in September that they aimed to do more to attract women and running-shoe customers. However, they noted that demand for the company’s products remained solid and they were “cautiously planning for modest markdown improvements for the balance of the year,” as the company tightens up its supplies of sneakers and clothing in stock.
On Thursday’s call, executives said that demand for higher-priced products had been “resilient,” and that they didn’t have to cut prices as much as their rivals. And they said new releases — like the Sabrina 1 and Luka 2 sneakers — were the best way to stand out in a sea of discounts.
“We know in an environment like this, when the consumer is under pressure and the promotional activity is higher, that it’s newness and innovation which causes the consumer to act,” Friend said.
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Nike beat expectations for second-quarter profit and announced a $2 billion cost-cutting plan, as it sees sales softening for the second half of its fiscal year.
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It may be a couple of years since the meme-stock feeding frenzy hit its heights, but we’re still seeing occasional bursts of meme-like activity in number of stocks.
No discussion of meme stocks would be complete without OG AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc.
AMC,
But while the movie theater chain and original meme stock darling still grabs plenty of attention, it no longer fits the bill of a meme stock, according to Alicia Reese, VP of equity research at Wedbush. “AMC has seemingly lost its meme status, its share price having come crashing back down to earth over the past several months, particularly since its APE fold-in and reverse stock split,” she said. “AMC is now trading at a more normalized valuation, even if still at the high-end of its pre-meme historic range.”
AMC’s shares ended Friday’s session at $6.65, a far cry from their high of $393.63 on June 2, 2021, during the meme-stock frenzy.
Related: AMC’s stock falls more than 5% after company completes $350 million equity offering
“AMC’s premium valuation here is driven in part by a sub-section of the shareholders it gained during its meme stage, who have remained loyal to the company and have long claimed to be AMC shareholders for life,” Reese added. “AMC shed all the rest of its meme-era shareholders and are now left with the lifers, along with some institutional shareholders now that valuation has come back to a more normalized range.”
The analyst thinks that in 2024, AMC will continue to issue pre-authorized shares to pay down its high-debt balance, as evidenced by the $350 million equity offering completed this week. “The company is focused on right-sizing the balance sheet, while attempting to maintain strong relations with the AMC lifers still propping up the stock,” said Reese.
Fellow original meme stock GameStop has also been in the news recently, with the company’s board of directors approving a new investment policy, which lets the company invest in equity securities, among other investments. The board also gave Chairman and Chief Executive Ryan Cohen the authority to manage the investment portfolio. The new policy was dubbed “alarming” and “inane” by Wedbush Managing Director Michael Pachter.
“If he can invest in anything – farmland, chicken feed, cryptocurrency – that’s not in the best interests of the shareholders,” he told MarketWatch. “Heaven knows what he will do.”
Related: GameStop’s plan to buy stocks with company cash ‘alarming’ and ‘inane,’ analyst says
As for GameStop, the analyst describes the videogame retailer as a declining business, pointing to the company’s third-quarter revenue of $1.078 billion, which was down from $1.186 billion in the prior year’s quarter. “They are shrinking, period, and they can’t save their way to prosperity,” he added.
The company’s new investment policy could also fuel more meme-style activity, according to Pachter, who says that Cohen’s moves will be closely watched. “He will invest in something and it will possibly become the next meme stock,” the analyst told MarketWatch.
Pachter pointed to Cohen’s decision in 2022 to unload his huge stake in beleaguered home goods retailer and sometime meme stock Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. just months after buying it. In August of that year Cohen sold his entire stake in Bed Bath & Beyond five months after accruing the stake in an activist campaign, amassing a profit of more than $58 million.
Stocktwits, a social platform for investors and traders, told MarketWatch that it has seen a dedicated core audience of retail investors stick with the likes of AMC and GameStop. “Message volume and sentiment have remained elevated on the platform throughout the year, with their audiences growing temporarily around earnings or other events that create volatility,” Tom Bruni, senior writer at Stocktwits, told MarketWatch.
Related: Small-cap Chinese stocks spark meme-like buzz
Retail traders are still on the lookout for high-volatility situations, according to Bruni, who cited the example of Vietnamese electric vehicle stock VinFast Auto Ltd.
VFS,
which had a “crazy month” in August before crashing back down. “However, we would note that there have been fewer instances of these types of meme stocks occurring this year, and their lifespan tended to be pretty short,” he added.
“For stocks with the ‘meme’ potential in 2024, look to beaten-down areas of the market that already have strong retail investor communities around them,” Bruni told MarketWatch. “Several that stick out are electric vehicle stocks (specifically startups), solar stocks, or anything China-related. Traders will likely be looking for stocks at the intersection of these themes, like Lucid Group ($LCID), as potential ‘powder kegs’ for volatility in 2024.”
Shares of Lucid Group Inc.
LCID,
are down 30.2% in 2023, compared with the S&P 500 index’s
SPX
gain of 22.9%.
One thing is for sure – the social media dynamics that created the meme stock phenomenon are not going away. “Internet culture will continue to be more prevalent in markets as the world becomes more digitized and young people age into participation,” Tommy Tranfo, head of community at Stocktwits, told MarketWatch. “Crypto markets are an area where we expect to see a large concentration of this activity, particularly within the context of a crypto bull market, which will likely bring in a new wave of market participants who will skew toward the internet culture demo.”
Related: This EV company has a bigger market cap than Ford or GM. But you may not have heard of it.
“New crypto meme communities such as the $BONK (a dog-themed coin on the Solana blockchain) are already clear examples of this craze taking place,” he added.
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Hasbro Inc. is cutting about 900 jobs as the company is facing a slump in toy and game sales after a boom during the pandemic.
The cost-saving plan will result in “the reallocation of people and resources,” including early retirement for some employees and layoffs over the next two years, Hasbro
HAS,
said in a filing late Monday.
The Wall Street Journal reported the layoff plans earlier Monday, citing a memo it had viewed.
The maker of My Little Pony and Monopoly launched the plan in January, and at the time announced the layoffs of about 15% of its workforce.
It has booked about $94 million in expenses related to severance, stock compensation and employee benefits, and expects to book an additional $40 million, the company said in the filing Monday.
Hasbro in October missed third-quarter earnings expectations and slashed its full-year outlook, citing a “softer toy outlook.”
Shares of Hasbro and rival Mattel Inc.
MAT,
fell about 4% and 3%, respectively, in the extended session Monday, as the Wall Street Journal report also cited “early data points to another weak year” for the toy industry following the a boom during the pandemic.
Mattel in October reported a better-than-expected third quarter, thanks in part to its wildly successful Barbie movie.
Shares of Mattel have gained 6% this year, which contrasts with a 20% drop for Hasbro stock. Both stocks, however, have underperformed in relation to the S&P 500 index
SPX,
which is up about 20% in 2023.
In a February filing, Hasbro said it had about 6,500 employees worldwide as of the end of 2022.
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The Walton family’s five-year rule as the world’s richest dynasty has come to an end.
The House of Nahyan, rulers of oil-rich Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, comes in at No. 1 on Bloomberg’s world’s richest families list for 2023, bumping the third-generation Walmart
WMT,
heirs that have long topped the rankings
The report released this week said that petroleum fortunes are “reshaping global business as never before,” and noted that the three Gulf families who made Bloomberg’s latest list of family fortunes are probably even wealthier than these “conservative estimates.”
The Al Nahyans of Abu Dhabi rule the list with $305 billion to their name, according to the report, which notes that the United Arab Emirates capital is home to most of the country’s oil reserves.
The Al Nahyan family holds $45 billion more than the Walton family, which owns 46% of Walmart — the world’s largest retailer by revenue. The Waltons have ruled the rankings for the past several years, but are now No. 2, worth $259.7 billion in the most recent fiscal year.
Rounding out the top three is the Hermès family, whose fortune can be traced to the French luxury house. The founding family is worth $150.9 billion, as they still own a two-thirds majority in the company.
As far as other Americans on the list, the Mars family’s confectionary collection of chocolate brands such as M&Ms, Milky Way and Snickers bars — not to mention pet products — land them in fourth place with $141.9 billion. And the Koch family, behind Koch Industries, is in sixth place with $127.3 billion.
The report added that the richest families have certainly gotten richer this year, with the world’s ultra-rich clans collectively adding $1.5 trillion — yes, trillion — to their wealth in the past year, a 43% increase over their already considerable fortunes in 2022.
So here are the world’s 10 richest families of 2023, as reported by Bloomberg.
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U.S. stocks closed higher Friday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average scoring its longest weekly winning streak since February 2019, as investors digested the latest job report.
For the week, the Dow eked out a gain of less than 0.1%, the S&P 500 edged up 0.2% and the Nasdaq advanced 0.7%. All three major indexes rose for a sixth straight week, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
U.S. stocks ended higher Friday as investors parsed a stronger-than-expected job report.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday that the economy added 199,000 jobs in November, while the unemployment rate fell to 3.7% from 3.9%. Economists polled by the Wall Street Journal had forecast that 190,000 jobs would be added in the month.
“It’s nice to see that a soft landing still can take place,” Yung-Yu Ma, chief investment officer at BMO Wealth Management, said by phone Friday. But the market had been getting “too optimistic” about potential interest-rate cuts by the Federal Reserve in the early part of next year, he added.
The job report is “perhaps a wash” for markets as “average hourly earnings growth came in a little on the high side,” Ma said. That could contribute to inflationary pressures and push a Fed pivot on rate cuts further out in 2024 than markets were expecting.
“The Fed can probably be patient for a while,” he said. Fed Chair Jerome Powell may “strike a bit more of a hawkish tone” after the central bank’s monetary-policy meeting next week, potentially pushing back against some of the enthusiasm for earlier rate cuts, Ma said.
Average hourly earnings rose 0.4% in November, up 4% year over year, the job report shows.
“Even though the headline 199,000 new jobs created is just slightly above consensus estimates for 190,000 new positions, the lower unemployment rate of 3.7%, coupled with higher-than-expected average hourly earnings, caused a jump higher in Treasury yields,” Quincy Krosby, chief global strategist at LPL Financial, said in emailed comments.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note
BX:TMUBMUSD10Y
climbed 11.5 basis points Friday to 4.244%, according to Dow Jones Market Data. That’s below its high this year of about 5% in October.
Meanwhile, the stock market’s so-called fear gauge remained low, with the CBOE Volatility Index
VIX
declining to 12.35 on Friday, FactSet data show.
See: The VIX says stocks are ‘reliably in a bull market’ heading into 2024. Here’s how to read it.
In other economic data released Friday, the University of Michigan’s gauge of consumer sentiment rose to a preliminary reading of 69.4 in December, its first increase in five months. Inflation expectations also moderated, the university’s survey of consumer sentiment showed.
Such a big swing for a single reading of the survey is unusual, said Claudia Sahm, a former Federal Reserve economist who now runs a consulting business. “These data usually don’t move like that,” she said during a phone interview with MarketWatch.
Next week’s economic calendar will include a reading on U. S. inflation from the consumer-price index as well as the outcome of the Fed’s two-day policy meeting, scheduled to conclude Dec. 13.
Meanwhile, the S&P 500 notched a sixth straight week of gains, its longest such winning streak since the stretch ending Nov. 15, 2019, according to Dow Jones Market Data. The Dow Jones Industrial Average logged its longest stretch of weekly gains since February 2019.
Steve Goldstein contributed.
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This is a developing story. Stay tuned for updates here.
The numbers: The University of Michigan’s gauge of consumer sentiment rose to a preliminary December reading of 69.4 from a six-month low of 61.3 in the prior month. This is the highest level since August.
Economists polled by the Wall Street Journal had expected a December reading of 62.4.
Expectations of inflation cooled in early December, according to the report.
Americans think inflation will average a 3.1% rate over the next year, down from 4.5% in the prior month. That’s the lowest level since March 2021.
Expectations for inflation over the next five years fell to 2.8% from 3.2% in November, which was the highest reading in over a decade.
Key details: According to the report, a gauge of consumers’ views on current conditions jumped to 74 in December from 68.3 in the prior month, while a barometer of their expectations of the future rose to 66.4 from 56.8.
Big picture: A lot of factors were behind the increase in confidence, with the solid job market and declining gasoline prices mentioned most often by economists. Stock prices have also been strong. Despite the gains, sentiment is still well below prepandemic levels.
Market reaction: Stocks
DJIA
SPX
were higher in early trading on Friday, while the 10-year Treasury yield
BX:TMUBMUSD10Y
rose to 4.21% after the solid job report was released earlier in the morning.
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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
The last few months of the calendar are huge for any retailer. In the U.S., Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Christmas sales reached almost $937 billion combined just last year alone.
It’s also typically the time when retailers see an increase in fraud, with an 82% higher rate of daily attempts in the long weekend between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday last year. However, experts say that retailers should brace themselves this holiday season in particular, as many factors have combined to make it an even more opportune time for fraudsters.
First, the combination of rising inflation and predictions of a recession in the next 12 months means that consumers with ever-tightening budgets are more likely to fall prey to false “deals.” Second, the latest technology such as generative AI enables fraud to be executed on a much larger scale than ever before.
Finally, crime does indeed seem to pay for fraudsters, as they are rarely held accountable for their crimes. New regulations in the U.S. are holding merchants and banks accountable for fraudulent transactions, while those behind them usually go unpunished. Generally, banks are more likely to be liable when the fraud involves an actual card, and merchants are more likely to be stuck with the cost for card-not-present transactions, when just the card’s details are needed, like online payments.
Here are four types of online fraud for which merchants should be on the lookout this holiday season.
Related: How to Transform Your Company’s Website Into a Real Money Maker This Holiday Season
AI is being used to turbo-charge fraud, with tools such as WormGPT and FraudGPT now available for free on the dark web, where they are used for malicious purposes. FraudGPT can create very believable phishing scams, in addition to launching viruses and malware from websites that look like trusted retail sites but are in fact false. WormGPT can use data from chats to mimic customer support agents / trusted retail brands and thus trick consumers into giving confidential information (e.g. their credit card details), as well as create fake products on online marketplaces, generate counterfeit coupons and promotions that seem legit, and create fake online reviews.
Email security company SlashNext conducted an experiment wherein they asked WormGPT to generate an email intended to urge an unsuspecting account manager into paying a fake invoice. According to researchers, WormGPT’s email was not only remarkably persuasive but strategic and cunning, demonstrating its potential for sophisticated phishing attacks.
To defend against this latest threat, merchants should ensure that all cybersecurity training for their company, such as awareness programs, is continually updated to include the latest warning signs of fraud. These include things like language that implies urgency.
Another type of online fraud that merchants should be aware of is website spoofing, or brand impersonation with the intent of launching phishing attempts to execute online fraud. Cybercriminals replicate a business site with an identical frontend to the original and a barely-changed domain name so that users are likely not to realize the site is fake and so to trust it with their personal data. In 2022, more than 4.7 million phishing attacks took place.
As long as the impersonated site is up, it damages the brand financially and reputationally, leading to customer churn. Memcyco’s Ran Arad refers to this critical time as the ‘window of exposure’: the time between when a counterfeit website is detected by Threat Intelligence Solutions, and its eventual takedown. In Arad’s words, “During this critical period, unsuspecting customers can be easily lured to the fake site, leading to potential monetary losses, data breaches and the exposure of personal identities. Alarmingly, many companies currently lack the insight to determine how many of their customers have fallen prey to scams during this vulnerable window.”
With the help of technology, brands can take these spoof sites down. However, the process can take too long to prevent customers being conned out of their money by fraud.
Instead, merchants should implement website fraud detection solutions that are able to identify fraud attempts in real-time. These will minimize the scope of damage and exposure of customer details as much as possible.
With gift card sales expected to reach $2 trillion by 2030, gift card fraud is also expected to increase — specifically around December time. Although there is an annual spike in gift card purchases in mid-December, Christmas Eve sees a staggering six to seven times more sales in gift cards.
Gift card fraud occurs when fraudsters steal a user’s credit card information and then buy a gift card with it. This kind of scam is effective because it leaves very little trail for the victims to follow: fraudsters can make purchases with stolen gift cards without needing any ID. For consumers, it’s virtually impossible to get this money back.
Merchants can attempt to prevent gift card fraud by placing limits on the ability to make large or repeated gift card purchases. In addition, having an internal system for tracking individual gift cards helps prevent fraudsters from taking advantage.
Account takeover is an old threat in retail, but with a rise in ecommerce fraud rings it has taken on a new twist. Malicious actors are employing bad bots to facilitate credential-stuffing and brute force attacks, as automation can cycle through potential credentials quickly until successful. These attacks have the potential to lock retail customers out of their accounts, provide fraudsters with sensitive information, contribute to business revenue loss, and increase the risk of non-compliance.
As bot attacks on ecommerce sites increased by 71% in 2022, merchants are caught in a double bind. On one hand, it has become increasingly challenging for merchants to keep user accounts safe. At the same time, failure to do so can harm their business through fraudulent transactions, payment fraud, user distrust, and a negative impact on their brand reputation.
The sophistication of these cybercriminals and criminal rings is fast-increasing, presenting a significant threat to retailers. Ping Li, Signifyd’s VP of Risk and Chargeback Operations, highlights that at one point in 2020, the automated attacks on their Commerce Network increased by 146%: “We’ve seen fraud rings unleash bots for everything from credential-stuffing to breaking into accounts, to rapid-fire fraud attacks, to quickly buying up the inventory of hot products for resale.”
Merchants should invest in technology that identifies the newest emerging fraud tactics. Many of these tools use machine learning and artificial intelligence to defend against bot attacks by malicious actors.
Related: What Every Small Business Needs to Know About Friendly Fraud
As retailers brace for a surge in fraud during the holidays, many factors are rendering increased vigilance crucial. In these times of economic uncertainty, merchants must put additional protections in place, especially since they are now accountable for reimbursing the victims of successful fraud attempts.
Fraudsters are also exploiting new and emerging technologies. Internal policies, including cybersecurity training and awareness, can offer increased protection. However, it is fraud detection technology — which identifies fraud attempts in real-time across multiple attack vectors, including websites — that should be the first line of defense for brands today.
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Ralph Tkatchuk
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Dollar General Corp.’s stock
DG,
rose 1.9% early Thursday, after the discount retailer beat third-quarter earnings estimates and backed its guidance, even as its CEO said it was not happy with its performance. The company posted net income of $276.2 million, or $1.26 a share, for the third quarter, down from $526.2 million, or $2.33 a share, in the year-earlier period. Sales rose 2.4% to $9.694 billion from $9.465 billion a year ago. The FactSet consensus was for EPS of $1.20 and sales of $9.644 billion. Same-store sales fell 1.3%, while FactSet was expecting a 2.1% decline. “While we are not satisfied with our financial results for the third quarter, including a significant headwind from inventory shrink, we are pleased with the momentum in some of the underlying sales trends, including positive customer traffic, as well as market share gains in both dollars and units,” CEO Todd Vasos said in a statement. Vasos returned to the role of CEO in October, after serving in the position from June 2015 to November 2022. Vasos said the company has completed a review of all aspects of the business and identified key areas for improvement both in the near and longer term. For fiscal 2024, it is planning about 2,385 real estate projects, including 800 new stores, 1,500 remodels, and 85 relocations. “This is a modest slow down compared to the number of projects in recent years, which we believe is prudent in this environment,” he said. Dollar General backed its full-year guidance, for a sales increase of 1.5% to 2.5%, and for EPS of $7.10 to $7.60. The company expects same-store sales to be down 1% to flat. The stock is down 45.6% in the year to date, while the S&P 500
SPX,
has gained 19%.
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Shares in PDD Holdings soared Tuesday after the online retailer reported quarterly results that were far ahead of Wall Street’s expectations. The rival to both Alibaba and Amazon revealed staggering growth.
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Fast-fashion retailer Shein has filed confidentially with US regulators for an initial public offering that could take place next year, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The online retailer, which was founded in China but is now headquartered in Singapore, is working with Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley on the listing, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the filing wasn’t public.
Representatives for Shein, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley declined to comment. A spokesperson for Goldman Sachs didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The filing was reported earlier by Shanghai Securities News.
Shein has become popular thanks to its trendy clothing at ultra-low prices. The company has been hoping for a valuation of as much as $90 billion in a US IPO, Bloomberg News reported earlier this month. Shein’s estimated sales now far surpass Zara and H&M in the US fast-fashion market.
At the same time, Shein has come under fire for poor labor conditions in factories it partners with, overproduction of poor quality garments and the use of cotton from a Chinese region accused of using forced labor. US senators have written to Shein Chief Executive Officer Chris Xu to request more information on the labor claims.
The criticism hasn’t stopped Shein’s meteoric rise among shoppers all over the world. Last year, Shein opened distribution centers in the US, Canada and Europe to accelerate shipping times in those regions. It has also begun to expand manufacturing in Brazil, Turkey and India.
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Matthew Monks, Olivia Rockeman, Bloomberg
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A number of Amazon.com Inc. executives have disclosed sales of some of their Amazon stock holdings in recent weeks, but Jeff Bezos, the company’s executive chair and a mega-shareholder, was not among them.
Despite some reports to the contrary, Bezos hasn’t disclosed any sales of Amazon shares AMZN for two years, but he has given some shares away to nonprofit organizations.
There…
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