The BBC writes: According to Bonnie Taylor-Blake, a researcher at the University of North Carolina, Factory Management and Maintenance, a labour market newsletter, lays claim to the first use of the term Black Friday as it relates to the holiday. In 1951 the circular drew attention to the suspiciously high level of sickness that day.
"Friday-after-Thanksgiving-
It is the last trading day of the month and the bears are hiding. According to Investors Intelligence, a survey of letter writers shows the lowest level of bears in 25 years at 14.4 percent. The bulls too are running, although not at the highest pace but at levels usually, eventually, suggesting a market turn down (right now the percent of bears is 55.7). Given this year’s action, the bullish sentiment makes sense. Of the major global equity markets, only Mexico is down on the year (in China, the Shenzhen Composite is up 23.65 percent although the Shanghai index is down). The TSX has been a laggard (+7.5 percent) but some of its sectors have been on a tear such as Healthcare (+61 percent), Discretionary (+36 percent), IT (+33 percent), Industrials (+33 percent). The materials sector is the big laggard (down 32 percent). In the U.S., the top sectors are Healthcare (+38 percent) and Discretionary (+38 percent). While JC Penney is the worst performing stock in the S&P 500 year to date (and today is its last day in the index), it is the best performing stock in the month of November (+34.4 percent).
Art lovers might be astounded by this. The Heffel auction of Canadian Art which we previewed on BNN a week ago resulted in a record sale for an Emily Carr. The Crazy Stairs sold for $3.4 million versus an estimate of $1.2-1.6 million and other paintings went for three to four times expected bids. Wow – bull markets everywhere.