FATH - Wall Street Breakfast Podcast: U.S. Sees Record Black Friday Online Sales

2023-11-27 06:54:00 ET

Summary

• U.S. Black Friday online sales increase by 7.5% from last year, driven by price-conscious shoppers.
• Tesla faces unionization battle in Sweden, with reports of blocked shipments, uncollected trash, and halted mail services.
• Fathom Digital Manufacturing holder offers to buy company for $4.50 a share.

Listen below or on the go on Apple Podcasts and Spotify

U.S. sees record Black Friday online sales, driven by price-conscious shoppers. (00:23) Tesla's ( TSLA ) union problems in Sweden include trash piling up and no mail service. (02:07) Fathom Digital Manufacturing holder offers to buy company for $4.50 a share. (03:45)

This is an abridged transcript of the podcast.

Black Friday online shoppers in the U.S. spent a record $9.8B , according to Adobe Analytics, up 7.5% from a year ago.

The record spending , which was widely expected , was driven by shoppers hunting for the best deals online amid deep discounts and flexible payment options. The top-selling categories were smartwatches, TVs, toys and gaming.

Consumers also spent more through buy-now, pay-later options. Of the total Black Friday online sales, $79M came from shoppers who opted for BNPL payment options, up 47% Y/Y.

As for Thanksgiving, online spending rose 5.5% Y/Y to a record $5.6B, nearly double the amount seen in 2017.

Adobe Analytics expects Cyber Monday to be this year's biggest online shopping day at $12B, up 6.1% Y/Y. However, spending will likely taper off deeper into the holiday season as discounts fade, said Vivek Pandya, analyst, Adobe Analytics.

Salesforce said Black Friday online sales reached $16.4B in the U.S. and $70.9B globally. Thanksgiving online sales totaled $31.7B globally and $7.5B in the U.S., up 1% Y/Y each.

Adobe Analytics' data is based on 1T visits to U.S. retail websites, 100M SKUs, and 18 product categories. Salesforce's numbers are based on data from over 1.5B global shoppers.

Tesla's (NASDAQ: TSLA ) battle to avoid any sort of unionization in Sweden ramped up to a new level over the last week.

Reports indicate that all Tesla shipments ( TSLA ) arriving by sea are blocked from being unloaded at Swedish ports, and more key suppliers are taking action against Tesla in sympathy with the strike initiated by manufacturers union IF Metall.

Tesla’s ( TSLA ) trash bins have been left uncollected and mail services have halted.

Notably, a poll conducted of 120 Swedish companies with fleets of 100 or more company cars said they would pause or completely stop buying Tesla ( TSLA ) vehicles because of the current conflict over collective bargaining agreements.

The issue is also political in Sweden, with center-right government minister Johan Pehrson joining politicians to the left and right in saying Tesla ( TSLA ) would benefit from joining the Swedish labor market model.

The biggest fear from labor organizers is that other major companies may look to follow if Tesla ( TSLA ) can navigate around the unionization issue.

While Sweden is not as big of a market for Tesla ( TSLA ) as Germany, the UK, or Norway - the Model Y has been a top seller in the nation and EV adoption has been growing.

Tesla ( TSLA ) is also a target of the United Auto Workers union in the U.S., although industry insiders see those efforts as having little chance of succeeding.

Looking ahead this week, Tesla ( TSLA ) will hold an event at the Gigafactory in Austin to mark the first official deliveries of the long-awaited Cybertruck.

Shares of Tesla ( TSLA ) have gained 7% over the last six weeks and the relative strength index on the stock is back over 50.

Core Industrial Fund has offered to purchase the remainder of the Fathom Digital Manufacturing (NYSE: FATH ) shares it doesn't already own.

The offer is for $4.50 a share.

According to a 13D filing on Friday, Core Industrial Fund, which owns a 63% stake in Fathom Digital ( FATH ), made a non-binding offer to purchase the company.

The offer represents a 4.4% premium to Fathom Digital's ( FATH ) closing share price last Tuesday.

Core expects that the Fathom ( FATH ) special committee will consider the proposal in consultation with independent financial and legal advisors and make a recommendation to the board.

Fathom closed the day Friday 5.2% lower.

Other articles to look out for on Seeking Alpha:

The AI gold rush is here. Buy 'picks and shovels' to benefit

Activist investor Elliott takes more than $2B stake in Crown Castle - WSJ

Can current tailwinds support Netflix's accelerated growth in 2024?

On our catalyst watch for the day,

• StoneX ( SNEX ) will start trading on a split-adjusted basis after the company's 3-for-2 stock split.

• The AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas will feature keynote addresses and innovation talks by top executives at Amazon ( AMZN ). The company said there will be much discussion on generative AI at this year's event. In the past, Wall Street analysts have sometimes pushed their AWS revenue estimates higher based on the re:Invent presentations.

• The FDA action date arrives for SpringWorks Therapeutics' ( SWTX ) nirogacestat treatment for Desmoid tumors.

U.S. stocks ended mixed on Friday.

Wall Street's major averages made small moves. The Nasdaq ( COMP.IND ) slipped 0.11%. The S&P 500 ( SP500 ) settled 0.06% higher, while the Dow ( DJI ) added 0.33%.

Of the 11 S&P sectors, nine closed in positive territory, led by Health Care. Tech and Communication Services were the two losers.

Now let’s take a look at the markets as of 6 am. Ahead of the opening bell today, Dow, S&P and Nasdaq futures are in the red. The Dow is down 0.1%, the S & P 500 is down 0.1% and the Nasdaq is down 0.1%. Crude oil is down 2% at more than $74 per barrel. Bitcoin is down 1.8% and above $37,000.

In the world markets, the FTSE 100 is down 0.17% and the DAX is dwon 0.1%. The market in India is closed.

The biggest movers for the day premarket: Following its Q3 release, UP Fintech (NASDAQ: TIGR ) is up 7%, reflecting the company's upbeat Q3 performance .

On today’s economic calendar:

• 10 am new home sales

For further details see: