The Daily Money: Want to avoid supply chain woes? Now's the time to get your holiday shopping done
Happy Wednesday, Daily Money readers. It’s Bailey Schulz here to bring you today’s news.
This might be the year to get your holiday shopping done early.
Experts say holiday shopping could literally go off the rails this year, thanks to a potential rail strike coupled with trucking and labor shortages, soaring diesel prices and inflation.
A potential railroad strike on Dec. 9 is expected to disrupt supply chains and put pressure on U.S. goods inflations. Some analysts estimate it could cost the U.S. economy $2 billion a day.
No major shortages are expected, but some food items may be missing for short periods of time. Retailers are urging customers to buy and ship gifts as early as possible.
The latest on FTX
The FTX saga continues.
Cryptocurrency lender BlockFi on Monday sued Emergent Fidelity Technologies, a holding company for crypto exchange FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, to recover Robinhood shares pledged as collateral shortly before FTX filed for bankruptcy.
The lawsuit against Emergent came the same day BlockFi filed for bankruptcy. The lender says its exposure to FTX caused a liquidity crisis and cited the crypto exchange as a "major cause" of its chapter 11 filing in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey.
Meanwhile, Axios reports that Bankman-Fried – once one of the richest people in the world – is down to his last $100,000 after the rapid failure of FTX.
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🛍️ Shopping stats 🛍️
Over the Thanksgiving weekend, a record 196.7 million American consumers shopped in stores and online – 17 million more people than last year, according to a report by the National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights & Analytics.
Here are some highlights from the report:
- Half of the shoppers surveyed bought clothing and accessories, while 31% bought toys and 27% purchased gift cards.
- Shoppers spent an average of $325 on holiday-related purchases from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday.
- The top spending categories were apparel and accessories, toys and gift cards.
About The Daily Money
Each weekday, The Daily Money delivers the best consumer news from Paste BN. We break down financial news and provide the TLDR version: How decisions by the Federal Reserve, government and companies impact you.
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