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Investors will get a glimpse of consumer health this coming week as the holiday shopping season gets under way with Black Friday sales, and a solid start could help equities steady after several tumultuous weeks.

The day after Thanksgiving has been regarded as the traditional start of the holiday buying season, although deals and bargains are being unveiled earlier this year.

Wall Street has been struggling with uncertainty over U.S. congressional midterm elections, the path of interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve, tariffs, the trade war and the possibility corporate earnings have already peaked. But a strong start to the gift-buying season could help ease some concerns.

After an October that saw the S&P 500 slump nearly 7 per cent, Wall Street has struggled to find its footing, rising 0.7 per cent so far in November. That puts the index on pace for its biggest quarterly loss since the third quarter of 2015 and its worst fourth-quarter performance in a decade.

About 38 per cent of U.S. consumers plan to shop on Black Friday this year, and six in 10 of those shoppers anticipate making at least half of their holiday purchases on that day, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed on Thursday.

“Of all the other factors, the consumer has been hanging in there – they drove third-quarter growth, we are seeing wage growth over 3 per cent, financing rates are still reasonable,” said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Cresset Wealth Advisors in Chicago. “If we see any kind of disappointment in Black Friday sales, that is going to cause some real concern.”

Same-store sales for the fourth quarter are expected to come in at a healthy 3 per cent, according to Refinitiv data. Still, that number is trending downward from the previous two quarters and is slightly below the year-ago result of 3.1 per cent.

A strong start to holiday sales may not translate to strong earnings, however, reinforcing concerns about the best of corporate profits being in the rear-view mirror as retailers have to grapple with deal-conscious consumers.

“Even a healthy consumer doesn’t necessarily mean that retail sales and profitability and performance will be off the charts,” said Shawn Kravetz, president of Esplanade Capital in Boston, who spoke at the Reuters Global Investment 2019 Outlook Summit in New York this week.

Muddying the picture were data on Thursday that showed U.S. retail sales rebounded sharply in October, boosted by purchases of motor vehicles and building materials, but the prior two months were revised lower and the trend indicated slower consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of economic activity in the country.

Big name retailers such as Target, Lowe’s Cos. and Gap Inc. are expected to report quarterly results next week and investors will watch for any guidance for the holiday season.

Still, a strong start to the holiday shopping season will only partly alleviate investor concerns, with a Group of 20 meeting at the end of November and the final Fed policy announcement of the year in December likely to cause some market volatility.

The market will need to digest these events for it to have a chance for what is known as a Santa Claus rally. Since 1950, the S&P has rallied in December three-fourths of the time, according to the Stock Traders Almanac. The benchmark index has gained an average of 1.6 per cent for December, the best month of the year.

“These are all important things, but if the mosaic is either constructive or negative then that is going to provide a wealth of information to either drive the market higher or drive the market lower,” said Phil Orlando, chief equity market strategist at Federated Investors in New York.

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Tickers mentioned in this story

Study and track financial data on any traded entity: click to open the full quote page. Data updated as of 28/03/24 7:00pm EDT.

SymbolName% changeLast
GPS-N
Gap Inc
+0.95%27.55
WMT-N
Walmart Inc
-0.91%60.17
TGT-N
Target Corp
+1.45%177.21

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