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Black Friday draws fewer US shoppers as many shun stores for online

Bargain hunters ventured out in chilly weather to buy Christmas gifts on Black Friday only to discover that many US retailers offered smaller price markdowns this year amid tight supplies.

COVID fears and fewer “doorbuster” sales thinned crowds the day after the US Thanksgiving holiday, which kicks off the year-end holiday shopping season.

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On the same day, the World Health Organization named the newly identified omicron variant of the coronavirus as a “variant of concern,” triggering worldwide alarm and a selloff in the US stock market.
Stores on Black Friday had the lowest level of clearance goods for sale in five years or more, Cowen analysts said in a note. Many shoppers chose to pick up merchandise curbside rather than venturing inside stores.
Black Friday retail sales are up 29.8 percent versus 2020 through 3 p.m. ET, according to Mastercard SpendingPulse.
Consumers spent $6.6 billion up until 9 p.m. ET on Friday, according to Adobe Digital Economy Index, which expected total spending of between $8.8 billion and $9.2 billion for the day.
Walmart and Target stood to outperform other retailers in part because of their buy-online-pick-up-at-store services, Cowen said. Target added more than 18,000 “drive-up” parking spaces, more than doubling spots versus last year. The company said its most popular Black Friday deals included
$219.99 for a KitchenAid professional stand mixer that regularly sells for $429.99, and savings of up to $60 on Apple Watches and AirPods.
Several retailers — including Walmart, Target, and Best Buy — are expected to post lower fourth-quarter profit margins because of tight inventory and higher costs for raw materials, freight and labor. “Even though the holiday season should be okay from a sales standpoint — because retailers are discounting less — the margins won’t necessarily be higher because of inflation,” said Forrester Research analyst Sucharita Kodali.
US consumers are entering the holiday season flush with cash thanks to a still-hefty pile of savings from multiple rounds of government pandemic relief and double-digit wage increases as businesses compete for workers.

Yet retailers had lured shoppers to make holiday purchases as early as September this year, because the supply chain logjam has prevented them from quickly replenishing year-end merchandise.
A Deloitte survey showed people had spent 80 percent -85 percent of their holiday gift budgets even before Black Friday. For November and December, online sales are estimated to hit a record $207 billion, up 10 percent from last year, according to Adobe Digital Economy Index.
The National Retail Federation has forecast combined brick-and-mortar and online holiday sales to reach between $843.4 billion and $859 billion, 8.5% to 10.5 percent higher than last year.
Elver Gomez, a 21-year-old student in Chicago, said he didn’t find the Apple and Microsoft laptops he wanted while shopping at a Best Buy store Friday morning. “It seems like this year it’s either out of stock” or for sale at what he said was “not that great of a price.” Best Buy added a message to its website warning of “limited qualities” and “no rainchecks.”
Electronics – in short supply due to a global chip shortage — had the highest out-of-stock levels, followed by personal care, and home and garden, according to Adobe. Through most of November, out-of-stocks were up 261 percent versus 2019.

Read more: COVID-19 retail impacts on consumer behavior here to stay: Survey

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Russian ruble holds steady at 96 against the US dollar ahead of tax payments


The Russian ruble steadied near 96 to the dollar on Tuesday, trading in a narrow band, supported by upcoming tax payments and high oil prices.
At 0710 GMT, the ruble was 0.2 percent stronger against the dollar at 96.10 and had gained 0.3 percent to trade at 101.69 versus the euro. It had firmed 0.1 percent against the yuan to 13.13.
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Month-end tax payments, that usually see exporters convert foreign currency revenues to pay local liabilities, support the ruble, but the currency can slide early in the month once the period has passed.
The ruble has also now lost the temporary support of higher sales of foreign currency than usual by the central bank, which was selling around 21.4 billion rubles of yuan a day until the start of this week.
“At the end of the week, when the tax period ends, there is a high likelihood of the resumption of the national currency’s smooth devaluation,” said Alor Broker’s Alexei Antonov.
Brent crude oil, a global benchmark for Russia’s main export, was down 1.1 percent at $92.23 a barrel.
Russian stock indexes were lower.
The dollar denominated RTS index was down 0.5 percent to 992.5 points.

The ruble based MOEX Russian index was 0.6 percent lower at 3,028.8 points.
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Digital, electric solutions can cut carbon emissions in office buildings by 70 pct


Retrofitting buildings using a digital-first approach is the best pathway to decarbonization, according to new research from Schneider Electric, the leader in the digital transformation of energy management and automation.
Buildings represent an estimated 37 percent of global carbon emissions, and as about half of today’s buildings are still likely to be in use in 2050, the sector must urgently reduce operational carbon emissions, by making buildings more energy efficient.
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The research findings show that deploying Schneider Electric’s digital building and power management solutions in existing office buildings could reduce their operational carbon emissions by up to 42 percent with a payback period of less than three years. If fossil fuel-powered heating technologies are replaced with electric-powered alternatives, and a microgrid with local renewable energy sources is installed, all-electric, all-digital buildings will see an additional 28 percent reduction in operational carbon emissions resulting in a total reduction of up to 70 percent.

Mike Kazmierczak, Vice President of the Digital Energy Decarbonization Office, the team leading the science-based research and product innovation to accelerate the energy transition within Schneider Electric’s Digital Energy division, explained that, “Tackling operational emissions is the number-one lever to decarbonize existing buildings at scale and achieve net-zero emissions targets by 2050. This breakthrough research reveals that reducing carbon emissions by up to 70 percent is feasible if we transform our existing building stock into energy-efficient, fully-electrified, and digitized assets.”
The research, carried out with the global design firm WSP, is based on modeling the energy performance and carbon emissions of a large office building built in the early 2000s across various US Climate Zones. This digital approach to building renovations is, however, applicable to all building types and climates, and is, therefore, the most effective building decarbonization strategy, yielding fast results with lower ‘upfront carbon.’
Renovating through the deployment of digital technologies is not only less disruptive to daily operations, but also more effective from a lifecycle carbon perspective. Failing to rapidly decarbonize buildings could also result in stranded assets that lose value and are unattractive to both investors and tenants.
Furthermore, recent research from the Boston University Institute for Global Sustainability and the Schneider Electric Sustainability Research Institute estimates that there is a sizable potential to create new jobs through the transition to low-carbon buildings.

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UK’s cost of living crisis to significantly increase early death: Study 


The UK’s inflation-fueled cost-of-living crisis is set to “cut lives short” and “significantly widen the wealth-health gap”, according to a study published by open access journal BMJ Public Health on Monday.

Modelling conducted for the study predicted that the proportion of people “dying before their time” (under the age of 75) will rise by nearly 6.5 percent due to the sustained period of high prices.

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The most deprived households will experience four times the number of extra deaths than the wealthiest households, it forecast, with the poorest having to spend a larger proportion of their income on energy, the cost of which has soared.

The researchers studied the impact of inflation on death rates in Scotland in 2022-3, with and without mitigating measures such as government support to help cut household bills.

The collected data was then used to model various potential future outcomes on life expectancy and inequalities for the UK as a whole if different mitigating policies were implemented.

Without any mitigation, the model found that inflation could increase deaths by five percent in the least deprived areas and by 23 percent in the most deprived — coming down to two percent and eight percent with mitigation, with an overall rate of around 6.5 percent.

Overall life expectancy would also fall in each case, it added.

“Our analysis contributes to evidence that the economy matters for population health,” said the researchers.

“The mortality impacts of inflation and real-terms income reduction are likely to be large and negative, with marked inequalities in how these are experienced.

“Implemented public policy responses are not sufficient to protect health and prevent widening inequalities,” they added.

UK inflation unexpectedly slowed in August to 6.7 percent from a high of 11.1 percent, but remains the highest in the G7, fueled by coronavirus lockdowns, Brexit and the war in Ukraine.

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