Wall Street rallies on Cyber Monday sale blizzard

A flurry of holiday shopping online and bargain hauls from shoppers saw Wall Street bounce back on Monday after last week’s sell-off. Retailer shares also gained as Cyber Monday looks on track to hit a record US$7.8 billion in sales for a day, making it the largest online shopping day in the United States (US).

On Monday, US’ S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average rose about 1.5% while the Nasdaq Composite gained more than 2.0%.

Ecommerce giant Amazon’s shares rose 5.3%, supporting both the Nasdaq and S&P Retail Index. Target shares rose 2.9% while Walmart shares closed 0.1% higher.

Cyber Monday is the Monday following the Thanksgiving holiday in the US. It is known in the US as the biggest online shopping day in the country’s history.

Earlier reports from Adobe Analytics show that consumers have spent US$531 million on online sales as of 10.00am Eastern Time on Cyber Monday, proving to be on track to hit the US$7.8 billion a day estimate. Last year, online transactions hit a record US$6.59 billion.

According to Adobe, shoppers are revealed to make their transactions using their phones as their primary shopping tool, accounting for more than 58.9% of visits to retail sites. Top shopping items listed by Adobe include smartphones, Nintendo Switch, and Beats headphones.

Adobe analyses data from 80 of the top 100 US online retailers and tracks more than 1 trillion visits and 55 million different items to make its forecasts.

Cyber Monday comes after record Black Friday sales

The surge of online shoppers comes after a record breaking Black Friday, which was on November 23, a day after Thanksgiving holiday. Online sales for Black Friday reached US$6.2 billion in the US, up 23.6% from a year ago and a new record high, data from Adobe showed. Last year, shoppers spent US$5.03 billion online.

According to Adobe, 33.5% of online sales on Friday came from mobile devices, higher than the proportion of 29.1% last year.

Adobe predicts online sales this holiday season to reach US$124.1 billion, supported by a strong economy and higher consumer confidence.