Black Friday online sales on track to hit record high: What are people buying?
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(NEW YORK) — People haven’t only been filling their plates this Thanksgiving weekend — it also seems they’ve been filling their online shopping carts.
Black Friday online shopping this year is on pace to break a record with between $10.7 billion and $11 billion in sales, according to Adobe Analytics, which tracks U.S. e-commerce data.
As of Friday evening, spending on online shopping was up more than 8% compared to last year, according to Adobe.
The record pace of Black Friday buying follows record-setting online shopping on Thanksgiving itself, the analytics firm said. Consumers spent a record $6.1 billion online on Turkey Day — up nearly 9% compared to a year ago, according to Adobe.
What are people buying this Black Friday?
Adobe said deep discounts are likely fueling the online spending spree, including discounts on toys of more than 27% off the listed price. Toys have seen a 178% boost in online Black Friday sales so far, compared to an average day in October.
Other popular items on Black Friday include makeup and skin care sets, LEGO sets, “Wicked” toys, Bluetooth speakers, TVs, patio heaters and air fryers, according to Adobe.
Increasingly, online shopping is happening on smaller screens. More than half of all online sales on Black Friday — 57.6% — were on mobile screens, according to Adobe. That’s up from 55.5% last year.
(NEW YORK) — The Federal Reserve is set to make a pivotal decision about its benchmark interest rate on Wednesday that could dial back its years-long fight against inflation.
Investors widely expect the Fed to cut interest rates for the first time since 2020, delivering long-sought relief for consumers saddled by high borrowing costs for everything from credit cards to mortgages.
“The time has come for policy to adjust,” Fed Chair Jerome Powell said last month at an annual gathering in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. “The direction of travel is clear.”
Inflation has slowed dramatically from a peak of about 9% in 2022, though it remains slightly higher than the Fed’s target of 2%.
Meanwhile, the job market has cooled. A weaker-than-expected jobs report in each of the last two months has stoked concern among some economists.
In theory, lower interest rates help stimulate economic activity and boost employment; higher interest rates slow economic performance and ease inflation.
“We will do everything we can to support a strong labor market as we make further progress toward price stability,” Powell said last month.
The chances of an interest rate cut at the Fed’s meeting on Wednesday are all but certain, according to the CME FedWatch Tool, a measure of market sentiment.
Market observers are divided over whether the Fed will impose its typical cut of a quarter of a percentage point, or opt for a larger half-point cut. The tool estimates the probability of a half-point cut at 65% and the odds of a quarter-point cut at 35%.
A half-point cut risks overstimulating the economy and rekindling elevated inflation, while a quarter-point cut threatens to delay the type of economic jumpstart that may be required to avert a recession, Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management, told ABC News in a statement.
“Rarely have market expectations been so torn” on the eve of a rate decision, Shah added.
Regardless of the size of the rate cut, borrowers should not expect immediate relief, Elizabeth Renter, senior economist at NerdWallet, told ABC News in a statement.
“This initial rate cut will have little immediate impact,” Renter said. “I anticipate many consumers and business owners will take the beginning of this change in monetary policy as a sign of hope.”
The expected rate cut on Wednesday would go into effect less than 50 days before the November election.
The Fed says it bases its decisions on economic conditions and operates as an independent government body.
When asked about the 2024 election at a press conference in Washington, D.C., in December, Powell said, “We don’t think about politics.”
(NEW YORK) — The Federal Reserve handed down a large interest rate cut this week, dialing back the central bank’s fight against inflation and signaling welcome relief for borrowers.
It remains to be seen, however, whether the Fed will continue to lower rates and further ease the burden for people and companies saddled with loans.
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), a policymaking body at the Fed, on Wednesday forecast further interest rate cuts.
By the end of 2024, interest rates will fall nearly another half of a percentage point from their current level of between 4.75% and 5%, according to FOMC projections. Interest rates will drop another percentage point over the course of 2025, the projections further indicated.
Speaking at a press conference in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said the projections reflect expectations that the economy will sustain the same pair of trends that prompted the rate cut in the first place: falling inflation and rising unemployment.
“These projections, however, are not a committee plan or decision,” Powell said. “As the economy evolves, monetary policy will adjust.”
Experts who spoke to ABC News predicted that the Fed is all but certain to deliver at least one more interest rate cut this year, hewing fairly closely to its projection for the coming months. However, the experts voiced caution about the forecast for rate cuts next year, saying the path would depend on economic performance, which is difficult to anticipate.
“These long-term interest rates projections are almost never correct,” Derek Horstmeyer, a finance professor at George Mason University’s Costello College of Business, told ABC News. “There is a lot of uncertainty.”
The Fed is guided by a dual mandate to keep inflation under control and maximize employment. In theory, low interest rates help stimulate economic activity and boost employment, while high interest rates slow economic performance and ease inflation.
Inflation has slowed dramatically from a peak of about 9% in 2022, though it remains slightly higher than the Fed’s target of 2%. The FOMC expects the inflation rate to fall to 2.1% next year and to reach the central bank’s target of 2% by 2026, projections show.
Meanwhile, the unemployment rate has ticked up this year. The FOMC expects that rate to also rise gradually next year, then hold steady over the following two years.
“If we stay on track with these projections, that’ll be great news,” Horstmeyer said. “It will be a signal that we pulled off a soft landing.”
The economy, however, may not perform as anticipated. A snag in the cooldown of inflation, or even an outright reversal, could prompt the Fed to pause its rate projected rate cuts, experts said. On the other hand, a greater-than-expected rise in unemployment or a possible recession could cause the Fed to cut rates faster than initially planned.
“If inflation has any surprise to the upside, it wouldn’t take much to see one of those projected cuts disappear,” William Luther, a professor of economics at Florida Atlantic University, told ABC News, referring to the two quarter-point rate cuts expected over the remainder of 2024.
A spike in unemployment, meanwhile, could prompt the Fed to revisit its plans for interest rates going forward, Luther added.
“If labor markets in particular were to show signs of deterioration over the next two months, we could see considerable revisions to the path of the federal funds rate,” Luther said.
On Wednesday, Powell acknowledged the flexibility of the Fed’s plans for rate cuts.
“We can go quicker if that is appropriate. We can go slower if that’s appropriate. We can pause if that’s appropriate,” Powell said. “This process evolves over time.”
(NEW YORK) — If you’ve opened Instagram over the last few days, you’ve likely seen a post that begins with the words “Goodbye Meta AI.”
The post, most often shared on Instagram stories, features black-and-white text warning of “legal consequences” and the use of artificial intelligence by Meta, the parent company of Instagram, Threads and Facebook.
“If you do not post at least once it will be assumed you are okay with them using your information and photos,” the text reads, in part. “I do not give Meta or anyone else permission to use any of my personal data, profile information or photos.”
Since early September, the message has been shared widely, even though it is a hoax.
More recently, when the message is shared on Instagram stories, it is blocked out by a warning that the message contains “false information.”
The warning directs users to a fact-check on the website LeadStories.com.
“Does posting a statement ensure that users of Meta services will not have their data used in Meta’s artificial intelligence training? No, that’s not true: Posting the viral statement, or any other statement, doesn’t mean that Meta will not use that data for AI training, but users in Europe can object via a form in their account settings,” the fact-check reads. “The statement is an example of “copypasta,” text containing information that’s often not true but which is repeatedly copied and pasted online.”
Meta describes generative AI as, “a type of artificial intelligence that can create new content when a person or business gives it instructions or asks it a question.”
When Meta announced its new generative AI features last year, the company detailed how and why it uses data for AI purposes.
According to the company, it pulls data for AI from users’ public posts, their interactions with AI features and publicly-available information from places like databases and search engines.
“We use public posts and comments on Facebook and Instagram to train generative AI models for these features and for the open-source community,” reads Meta’s public privacy policy. “We don’t use posts or comments with an audience other than Public for these purposes.”
The company does not appear to pull information from data for generative AI from user accounts that are set to private.
Meta did not reply to ABC News’ request for comment.
