Happy Sunday and welcome to all the news readers of Money Buzz!
#1 - Economic Uncertainty Looms
People are pointing to this year’s Black Friday as a “return to normalcy”. Although, this is more from the perspective of retailers rather than customers. When compared to previous years, this Black Friday was highly successful because there was a resurgence in foot traffic for stores. COVID and a huge shift towards online shopping completely killed Black Friday these past couple of years.
The most interesting part of this year’s Black Friday is that the customers’ motives for shopping seem to be quite different. They are on the hunt for a deal more than ever. With the general economic uncertainty and high levels of inflation, customers felt like they needed to go out shopping to get the best deals possible. Something about that just seems so distressing. Perhaps an indicator that another round of economic uncertainty is still to come.
#2 - Coffee Prices are Crashing
To all of my fellow coffee drinkers, relief is coming (hopefully). This is more of a personal anecdote, but going out to grab a coffee is a way to break me out of a monotonous routine. Using my french press or Keurig every day can only be sufficient for so long! When taking a look at the chart below, it is evident that the price of coffee per pound is quickly falling. As of writing this, the coffee’s price has fallen by ~35% over the past year.
This can be attributed to Brazil’s weather which provided ideal conditions for growing coffee. As a result, Brazil (aka the “largest coffee producer in the world”) will export a large supply of coffee. For all my econ-oriented folks, when increasing supply while holding demand constant will force prices to go down. Feels odd to write about a good or service where its price is actually going down. Being in this high-inflation environment for an extended period of time has really done a number on us, huh?