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Holiday retailing: Mixed signals on Black Friday

The crucial post-Thanksgiving shopping season got off to a record start, with U.S. retailers ringing up $10.3 billion in sales on “Black Friday,” the day after Thanksgiving, said Jonathan Birchall in the Financial Times. But the 8.3 percent increase over last year’s sales totals “did not guarantee strong sales for the rest of the holiday season.” One-day price promotions, like a 42-inch flat-screen TV for $800, lured many shoppers into stores. Now, consumers are settling into a waiting game, said Michael Barbaro in The New York Times. “American consumers are trying to outsmart the stores and wait for desperation discounts,” said retail consultant Burt Flickinger.

Worried about a falloff in sales, stores “began pulling out all the stops in an effort to keep up the momentum,” said Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan in The Wall Street Journal. J.C. Penney, for example, greeted shoppers on Black Friday with discount coupons that could only be used the next day. Despite the retail industry’s best efforts, the drop-off in store traffic on Saturday “seemed more marked to me than it did in years past,” said retail analyst Madison Riley. “It could mean we’re heading toward a lukewarm Christmas.”

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Energy: Brazil vaults into oil’s big leagues

A huge oil discovery could turn Brazil into the world’s next oil superpower, said Gary Duffy in BBCnews.com. The Tupi oil field, off Brazil’s east coast, could hold as much as 8 billion barrels of high-grade light crude. If the projections prove true, Brazil would join “the same league as Venezuela and countries in the Arab world,” and could become a major oil exporter. Reacting to the find, Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said, “God is Brazilian.”

Europe: Central bank tries to avert a slowdown

Amid fears that the U.S. economic slowdown is spreading to Europe, the European Central Bank announced it would pump funds into the money markets, said Ralph Atkins in the Financial Times. The central bank acted after banks reported paying sharply higher rates for short-term borrowings, a sign that liquidity is drying up. With interest rates rising and money becoming scarce, Europe’s service sector is already reporting the lowest levels of growth in more than two years.

Autos: Big recall for Nissan

Nissan Motors is recalling 686,500 of its Altima and Sentra models to fix a faulty sensor, said the Associated Press. The “crankshaft position sensor” runs a risk of overheating, causing the engine to “stop running without warning while the car is being driven at low speeds.” No crashes or injuries linked to malfunctioning sensors have been reported. The cars affected are 2002 and 2005–06 Altimas and Sentras equipped with 2.5-liter engines. About 650,000 of the recalled cars are in the U.S.

Oil: Oxy Pete returns to Libya

Occidental Petroleum will spend up to $2.5 billion to upgrade Libya’s oil production over the next five years, said Spencer Swartz in Dow Jones Newswires. The announcement comes just days after ExxonMobil announced it would step up exploration off Libya’s coast. “Free from international sanctions, Libya is eager to enlist foreign oil companies to help it nearly double crude production to 3.0 million barrels a day by around 2015.”