Analyzing the holiday shopping season... It's not growth, it's higher prices... Financing Christmas... Small businesses keep cutting jobs... Unlocking a crypto 'choke point'... How to take advantage...
People bought plenty of stuff on Black Friday and Cyber Monday...
We've got numbers. During the five-day period from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, Americans spent more than $44 billion on the Internet alone, according to Adobe Analytics. That was up 7.7% from last year, with both Black Friday and Cyber Monday hitting record spending levels.
Looking at each day individually, folks spent $11.8 billion on Black Friday, up 9.1% year over year. Cyber Monday sales rose 7.1% to more than $14 billion – beating Adobe's early expectations for 6% growth.
Most of that Cyber Monday spending came from just three categories, according to Adobe's report: electronics ($3.7 billion, up 12.8% year over year)... apparel ($2.6 billion, a 5.2% year-over-year increase)... and furniture ($1.8 billion, up 5.4% from last year).
Altogether, in the "holiday season" – which Adobe tracks as November 1 to December 31 – spending is up 7.2% from last year so far to $137 billion. For the full season, Adobe expects $253 billion in holiday spending, up 5.3% from last year.
But the picture isn't all rosy...
The headline spending numbers show a strong consumer. But below the surface, cracks are still forming.
For one, folks actually bought fewer things from Black Friday through Cyber Monday...
Data from Salesforce showed that while Black Friday revenues rose 6% from last year, orders actually fell by 2%. The story was the same on Cyber Monday... Salesforce reported 7% growth in spending, but a 1% decline in the number of items sold.
Nearly all the spending growth came from a 4.5% increase in average order value. In other words, the growth wasn't due to a stronger consumer... Folks were buying the same things as before, but they now cost more due to inflation.
And people are increasingly "putting it on their tab"...
That's through zero-interest buy now, pay later ("BNPL") installment loans. So far this holiday season, Adobe said folks have spent more than $10 billion through BNPL. That's up 9% from last year. And Adobe expects BNPL loans to make up about $20 billion in spending for the full holiday period, up 11% from 2024.
BNPL giant Klarna saw even more growth, with its volume surging 45% in November thanks to a "record Black Friday."
Adobe phrased the behavior this way: "Consumers looked for greater flexibility in managing their holiday budgets." In other words, people can't afford all the gifts they were buying, but they bought them anyway... hoping to pay for them in the future.
On top of that, a survey from MoneyLion showed that 84% of Americans plan on using credit cards to finance their holiday spending. And a separate survey from accounting giant PwC showed that credit cards are now the preferred spending method for 52% of respondents (up from 40% last year).
So most of this year's spending growth is coming from higher prices. And when folks are buying, they're putting the bill off until later.
That'll be bad news soon...
As we noted in the April 29 Digest, BNPL usage is flashing a warning sign for the consumer. The BNPL trend was first popular to finance electronics and things like apparel but has expanded beyond that to essentials like food.
From that Digest...
So more young adults are financing their groceries – everything from bread to Froot Loops cereal – to spread out the bills over multiple payments. That's a worrying sign for the future of consumer spending.
And as we shared in the June 26 Digest, folks are falling behind on these payments...
In May, the Federal Reserve released a study showing that nearly one-fourth of customers were late making a payment on their BNPL loans in 2024 – up from 18% in 2023.
The story is the same with credit cards... At the end of the third quarter, 12.4% of all credit-card balances were more than 90 days delinquent, according to data from the New York Fed.
That's the highest level since the first quarter of 2011, when we were still recovering from the financial crisis.
With total credit-card debt of $1.23 trillion at the end of the third quarter, that means more than $152 billion in credit-card balances haven't seen a payment in three months – or longer.
And even with the Fed's rate cuts, the average credit-card interest rate is still above 20%. So falling behind on payments means higher balances and more stress on consumers.
Taking all this into account, it's no surprise that folks are turning to the usually interest-free BNPL loans for their holiday shopping now. That's not exactly a sign of financial health.
Meanwhile, parts of the economy are in a recession...
That's our take on this morning's private-payrolls report from payment processing company ADP, covering November. It showed that America's small businesses keep shedding jobs.
ADP's survey estimated that businesses with fewer than 50 employees cut 120,000 jobs last month. The better news is that midsize and large businesses added around 90,000 jobs. But overall, job losses were spread across most sectors. The manufacturing sector lost 18,000 jobs, according to ADP.
Put it together and November private payrolls "unexpectedly fell by 32,000," well below Wall Street expectations for a gain of 40,000.
A month ago, we reported on the October ADP report, which showed private payrolls rose by 42,000 – more than Wall Street expected. But we noted how the details told us that the labor market picture was still mixed. From the November 5 Digest...
All of the private jobs added [in October] – 76,000 by ADP's measure of tens of millions of private-sector employee activity – came from companies with at least 250 workers. Smaller businesses shed 34,000 jobs.
On CNBC today, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick blamed the drop in small-business activity on the government shutdown and the Trump administration's ongoing efforts to deport undocumented immigrants.
We know many of you, our subscribers, operate small businesses. You've written to us this year about the challenges of rising costs... not just from inflation but also from tariffs.
Some of you told us you may need to cut costs (jobs) if clarity didn't arrive on tariff policy soon. It has been a few months. What are you seeing in your businesses now? Let us know at feedback@stansberryresearch.com.
At least in the short term, this labor-market weakness was perversely a "good" thing for the markets...
In our view, today's jobs report clinches a rate cut from the Fed next week. Wall Street thinks so, too, with federal-funds futures traders betting on a 25-basis-point cut with a near 90% likelihood. The idea of "easier money" on the way lifted stocks today.
The major U.S. stock indexes were all higher, with the small-cap Russell 2000 Index leading, up about 1.8%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished almost 1% higher, the benchmark S&P 500 Index was up 0.3%, and the Nasdaq Composite Index gained 0.2%.
Boy, things change fast... Earlier this year, the market was sure the Fed would cut rates in December. As recently as three weeks ago, investors believed it wouldn't. Now they're confident again after key Fed members struck a more "dovish" tone.
We don't expect any more reversals before the Fed's policy announcement one week from today. But if investors change their minds – again – in the next few days, we'll let you know.
A crypto 'choke point' is being unlocked...
Lastly today, we want to point you to this story from our Crypto Capital editor Eric Wade.
As Eric has shared in the Digest in the past, the banking system quietly froze out the crypto industry for years, keeping trillions in institutional money on the sidelines.
But those restrictions are about to be formally lifted. And as Eric explains in a new free presentation, the largest financial players in the world are finally free to roll out blockchain-backed projects they've been building in the background.
According to Eric, this sudden policy reversal is setting the stage for a "ChatGPT moment" in digital assets. That's the phase where adoption accelerates... and cryptos powering that system could surge in value, just as early AI stocks did when ChatGPT hit the mainstream.
While bitcoin is down from its all-time highs two months ago, Eric says there's potential for select tokens to reach 10, 50, or even 100 times their value as Wall Street fully commits to the crypto space.
Crypto Capital subscribers and Stansberry Alliance members can find all the details in this special report here... And if you don't have access yet, click here to learn more about this opportunity in a new free presentation from Eric and get started with a subscription today.
New 52-week highs (as of 12/2/25): First Majestic Silver (AG), Applied Materials (AMAT), ASML (ASML), Atour Lifestyle (ATAT), Atmus Filtration Technologies (ATMU), Alpha Architect 1-3 Month Box Fund (BOXX), EnerSys (ENS), Fanuc (FANUY), Mueller Industries (MLI), VanEck Morningstar Wide Moat Fund (MOAT), Nucor (NUE), Omega Healthcare Investors (OHI), Sprott Physical Silver Trust (PSLV), Seabridge Gold (SA), iShares Silver Trust (SLV), and Vale (VALE).
In today's mailbag, feedback on yesterday's Digest, which discussed Costco suing the U.S. government to ensure it gets a "complete refund" of tariffs the company has paid this year... Do you have a comment or question? As always, e-mail us at feedback@stansberryresearch.com.
"So, is Costco going to refund to their customers all the extra/higher charges they put on their goods because of the tariffs?" – Subscriber Robert B.
All the best,
Corey McLaughlin and Nick Koziol
Baltimore, Maryland
December 3, 2025
