Name: Stock market reacts after big Black Friday shopping season
Uploaded: 2025-12-02T19:40:16.550Z
Duration: 3 min 28 s
Description: Major stock markets ended in the red as December began, but spending among Americans during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend was impressive. CBS News contributor J.D. Durkin has more.

Major stock markets ended in the red as December began, but spending among Americans during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend was impressive. CBS News contributor J.D. Durkin has more.

Wall Street

U.S. stock markets opened with modest gains following a record-breaking Black Friday, where online purchases reached $11.8 billion, marking a 9% increase from the previous year according to Adobe Analytics. Despite strong retail sales, market performance was subdued, and analysts noted a disconnect between consumer sentiment surveys, which remain pessimistic, and actual spending data, which shows robust activity.

Experts highlighted that discretionary spending on items like clothes and jewelry increased, even as economic uncertainty persists and interest rates remain elevated. Attention now turns to the Federal Reserve's upcoming decision on interest rates, which could influence consumer behavior and market trends as the year draws to a close.

Stock market reacts after big Black Friday shopping season

Boom, boom, booyah, hitting that opening bell this morning, 9.30, the start of business on Wall Street rang just seconds ago. Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, that's Paul Atkins, gets the honor for ringing the bell this morning. The Dow is starting up this morning after being in a little sort of flattish and down yesterday. Of course, it's day one of December. Trading ended with markets snapping some five-day win streaks. And we are now less than 30 days before the new year. So we wanted to look at where things stand and what to watch for as 2025 comes to a close. So to do that, let's bring in CBS News contributor J.D. Durkin, who's joining us from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange this morning. So, J.D., I was looking at some numbers this morning. You know, we'd been talking about the lead up to Black Friday, Cyber Monday, et cetera, and we thought that perhaps people wouldn't be spending as much. Well, it turns out $11.8 billion in online purchases on Friday, which is a 9 percent increase from last year. That's according to Adobe Analytics. So really, really strong numbers there. And, Vlad, what's even more interesting to me personally about those strong numbers is we have this separation between what we call the soft data and the hard data. The soft data are things like consumer sentiment surveys from the University of Michigan and the conference board. We do monthly surveys of the average U.S. consumer and say, how do you feel about your personal economic situation? How do you think the next year will look like for you and your family? And in those surveys, the American consumer respondents tell us they feel pretty sour. They have a lot of concerns. And yet the hard data, which is the actual spending you just alluded to there, Vlad, tells a much different story. I think retailers, for the most part, despite the fact that we have a backdrop of a stretched consumer, they had been expecting Q4 to be very strong. And we really saw that out of those early Adobe Analytics looks for both Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The real question is, as we continue forward with the Fed taking into consideration a potential cut of interest rates next week, what does that mean for the consumer with still a few months left to go in the year? And how strong is the consumer going to be shaping up as we head into 2026? So help me understand then strong sales. In fact, I was looking also at what people were spending on clothes and jewelry. I mean, in this economy, right, as we might say, people want to be out in their drip, but the markets were sluggish. What's going on? Yeah, I mean, listen, we all want to be dripped out, of course, of the holidays. I certainly understand that. A lot of those things you just talked about are what we call discretionary spending. These are the type of publicly traded companies, the sectors of the economy. You might be willing to spend a little bit more money on a little bit of extra discretionary take home pay if you feel better about your economic situation. But when we have economic downturns, those discretionary stocks are the very first ones to lead to the downside. So it's a fascinating study right now. We talk a lot about the so-called K-shaped economy, Vlad, the difference between the haves and the have nots, especially in a environment where interest rates are still pretty elevated. If you're a higher income American, if you own interest accruing assets, you're doing very well. Your money is making money and you're spending that money. But if you're a borrower in this economy, you're feeling the pressure of those interest rates and that may play itself out on a backdrop of a lot of economic uncertainty as we head into the new year. Yeah. See what you're talking about, J.D. Durkin, with some really important insight into what we're seeing on Wall Street this morning. J.D., thank you, my friend. Thank you.

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