#97: I'm Officially Back

Hey all, it’s MMV.

It’s been a while since I put out a newsletter. To be honest, I’ve been feeling burnt out on making long-form content and just normal life taking a toll on me. 

My wife asked why I haven’t been putting out a newsletter and I said that I was just burnt out. Plus, it’s not like I’m getting paid well to do this. She said that I was being lazy so here I am trying to start it up again.

Here’s what’s been happening these last 3 months:

Even though the government shut down did affect me since I didn’t get my normal paychecks for over a month, I was able to live my life normally because:

We are expecting another shut down in February since the current budget is only till January 30th so hopefully federal employees who struggled in this past one learned to be prepared.

🛍️ Black Friday Sets New Online Spending Record With $11.8 Billion In Sales
TLDR; record sales year for Black Friday because people spent a lot of money on credit

💰 Nvidia has a cash problem — too much of it
Nvidia has $60.6 billion in cash.. what a nice problem to have!

📈 A 'K-shaped' economy has investors on edge
K-shape means higher-income households powering spending while lower-income consumers struggle with affordability.

Black Friday just passed and sales data from several sources are out! 

Klarna, the buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) company, reported a 45% year-over-year increase in U.S. sales from November 1st through Black Friday. 

Footwear, tech, beauty, and home goods all performed strongly. 

What’s interesting about this Black Friday is that there was a 9.1% increase in spending form last year, but a -1% in total item volume from last year, prices 7% higher and consumers bought an average of 4.1% fewer items. 

What makes this even worse is HOW consumers paid for their purchases.

Shopify reported that Shopify merchants generated a record-breaking $14.6 billion in Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales, up 27% from last year. 

Adobe reported an 805 percent boost in AI-driven traffic to U.S. retailers online, and estimated $761.8 million in BNPL spending.

What this data is telling me is that consumers continue to have unhealthy spending behavior and that more consumers are willing to finance their purchases using BNPL.

Coincidentally, Fortune published an article that “six-figure earners are ‘living the illusion of affluence’ while working side hustles, skipping meals, and pretending Venmo’s not working”. 

Of those earning over $200,000, 64% said they’ve used rewards points to pay for essentials, 50% have used “buy now, pay later” plans for purchases under $100, and 46% rely on credit cards to make ends meet. 

If spenders keep spending, this will keep the economy from falling into an apparent recession, even though I feel like we’ve been bouncing between that line for the past year already.

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