Twitter gets its gloves on to take on some heavyweights. In a match-up that would see even the most desperate gambler walk away, Musk’s Twitter is on a collision course with Apple and Google over “Twitter 2.0” – which is looking set to violate the tech giants’ hefty App Store fees of 30% in a bid to boost net revenue. Musk even called out Apple CEO Tim Cook on Twitter (see The Bottom Line). Maybe Elon can just make his own smartphone business, particularly with Starlink in his back pocket?

Shout-out to friends of the newsletter Paddle, who are building an App Store competitor. 

The lowdown

• 🤑 It was a Black Friday weekend to remember for Shopify, which shattered all Black Friday weekend records to date.

• 🚗 Tesla is recalling more than 80,000 electric cars in China over seatbelt and software issues – it’s almost like Tesla’s CEO has been preoccupied of late…

• 🇨🇳 Xi Jinping could be facing his biggest challenge yet as ongoing Covid-19 measures spark widespread protests. ($)

Featured Stories

Online shopping may be a dead cat

Dead cat bounce might sound like a terrible band name you and your cousin came up with at Thanksgiving dinner, but it also describes the small, brief recovery in the price of a declining stock – "even a dead cat will bounce if it falls from a great height." 

Mostly because 2022 has just been one giant declining market, Black Friday weekend is giving off a real whiff of dead cat. 

The data is still rolling in from Cyber Monday, but it looks like consumers spent more than ever, despite economic pressures and uncertainty – and, apparently, the rising cost of simply existing.

Online sales reached $9.12 billion on Black Friday, up 2.3% vs a year earlier, according to Adobe Analytics. Shopify hit all-time highs, Walmart outperformed Amazon, and Amazon still did pretty well with a 60% surge in sales year-over-year.

And already FinTwit is abuzz with talk of recession’s end and a market comeback.

Hold on to your proverbial horses: 

• Sales might have been up, but inflation has slashed margins for many businesses, which we’ll begin seeing in Q4 reports.

• While any growth is good growth, modest growth is still modest growth – which is exactly what this year’s performance was: modest. At best, it was higher than last year's 2.9% growth.

• More shoppers than ever are deferring payments to buy holiday gifts. Buy now, pay later orders surged by 78% during 19-25 November vs the previous week. Great for BNPL businesses, bad for future spending when the interest rates pile up.

Any Black Friday weekend boost will be welcome to economists and investors alike, but to quote LL Cool J: 

“Don’t call it a comeback.”

Let’s see how high this dead cat will bounce.

The content we're consuming today

• The Economist: The new winners and losers in business – Which American companies have thrived or dived in a testing economy? ($)

• FT: The fighter jet that could create a new alliance between the UK and Japan ($)

Off-balance sheet items

• If you’re looking for a delicious mid-week treat, look no further than Mark Hylod’s The Menu, starring Ralph Fiennes (Lord Voldemort himself) and Anya Taylor-Joy (from that Netflix show that made you love chess for two weeks before giving up). Witty, beautiful dialogue, and utterly, outrageously funny. Just the Tuesday pick-me-up you need.

The bottom line