Squawk Pod: Black Friday with Shopify & Amazon - 11/28/25 | Audio Only

Bring in show music, please. This is Squawk Pod and I'm CNBC producer Cameron Costa. On today's episode, it's Black Friday. The holiday shopping season is officially upon us, so we're going to the mall with CNBC's Courtney Reagan. The cadence has changed for the day as far as when traffic peaks, but it is still a very, very important day for retail. We're checking in on Shopify with President Harley Finkelstein's minute-to-minute sales numbers. Skincare, vitamins, supplements, activewear. So, people are shopping for themselves right now, right? And on Amazon with head of US Prime Video Jay Marine, the platform is touting Black Friday football and Black Friday shopping. And we're gonna have Black Friday deals happening all throughout the day that you can shop throughout the game and really take action right from your couch. Plus, the rest of today's news that got us squawking, like Russian President Putin ready for serious peace talks with Ukraine and a cooling issue at a data center caused a major outage at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Thanks for having me in on a day when nothing's working. It's Friday, November 28th, and Squawkpod begins right now.

Good morning everybody. Welcome to Squawkbox right here on CNBC. We are live from the NASDAQ market site in Times Square. I'm Becky Quick along with Steve Leeman and Robert Frank. Joe and Andrew are off today, but hello and wake up. If you are just getting up this morning, you better check things out. Early this morning, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange saying that its markets were halted because of a cooling issue at a data center. Among the markets that are impacted by this outage, stock index futures, crude oil prices, treasuries, and foreign exchange. The CME says that after the outage is resolved, it may take some time for moves in the impacted contracts to be seen. The data center operator Cyrus 1 just saying that it has restarted several chillers at limited capacity and engineers are working to restore that capacity. We are going to show you some of the moves in the large ETFs that track the indices based on those proxies for the markets. We could see fractional gains for stocks at the open and we probably should point out for you too that just before futures went down it was looking like things were pointing to positive futures moves. I think the S&P futures were up by about one-tenth of a percent before that went down. And here's what you see right now in those major ETFs that track things. Invesco's triple Q's that's up by about four-tenths of a percent. The Spider for the S&P 500 up by about a quarter percent and the Spider Dow up by just fractionally just by less than one-tenth of a percent. We will continue to follow all of this. But guys, if you were looking at what happened last week, things were looking pretty good for what had been a relatively weak market or weak month for the markets. Last week, you saw the Dow, the S&P 500, the Nasdaq, the Nasdaq 100, the Russell 2000, and the Dow transports, all posting their fourth straight session in a row. And it really turned around the markets that had seen so much weakness for the month of November. Looking at a pretty down month for November. It's the first time we've had a down month in November in a long time. Looks like it'll still be down depending what happens today. Now, today is already a low volume day. So, this could be a little bit choppy if these futures issues don't get fixed right away, particularly in the Treasury market. As Steve knows, we're still riding the Williams rally, which was based on, you know, John Williams saying that look, we probably likely should have a cut. And that's what really sparked that 4-day rally after questions about the AI trade. So, if the futures are unsteady today or there's wide spreads between bids and asks, it could be an interesting trade.

I just want to say thanks for having me in on a day when nothing's working. I mean, I haven't done this in like a year and you had me in and nothing's working. I mean, it's all right. I mean, there's no correlation.

Welcome to the big leagues. We're going to throw you right into the heat and the fire. Most things that people care about are not going to be... and you feel good about these ETFs as proxies. They're okay perhaps. I mean, why don't just show the Mag 7. I mean, if the individual stock futures are trading we should point that out and since the Mag 7 have been driving the market there has been a bit of broadening but I think it would be useful if we start showing those tech stocks because those are the ones that have really driven...

I know this is pathetic to ask on national television but when I'm looking at this 10 year at 3.99 is that a real quote?

I don't believe so.

You don't think so?

I don't think so. And my Fed probabilities aren't working.

No, I don't know. Fed futures are not trading.

Developing story. One of two guard members shot in a targeted ambush shooting in Washington on Wednesday has died. Sarah Beckram was 22 years old. She began serving in the West Virginia National Guard in June of 2023. President Trump says she died of her wounds last night. The other guardsman was identified as a 24-year-old Andrew Wolf. The president said he was in very bad shape and fighting for his life. The suspected gunman Ramanullah Lakanwal was also shot and taken to a hospital. The CIA said he's an Afghan national who worked with US forces during the war in Afghanistan. Late last night, President Trump posting on Truth Social that he is quote permanently pausing migration from all third world countries. He also said he would end all federal benefits and subsidies to non-citizens.

Yeah, we don't know what that means, right? What does the freeze mean? Which countries are...

The Wall Street Journal already editorializing against this move by the president. I mean, this gentleman, this terrible person who committed this was working for the CIA in Afghanistan. And the Wall Street Journal pointing out this morning that is not helpful for US forces that will eventually go in there. Many Afghans who have come back because they were in danger for staying in Afghanistan.

Yeah. Of course by the... perhaps we shall say for how Biden exited there, but you still had to bring back these people.

Yeah.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's breaking his silence on the peace plan that was proposed by the US saying Moscow is ready for quote serious discussions. He said that the plan could be the basis for future agreements, but no final version exists yet. And he confirmed that US envoy Steve Witkoff is expected to visit Moscow next week and meet with Putin. A lot of intrigue over the past week about who leaked it and whose motives and whether this will really throw a wrench into the process, but this could be interesting.

Yeah. And to see if they are serious about it because to this point it has been Russia that has been the bulwark that has kind of thwarted anything you could have going on in terms of peace talks too.

Apparently Ukraine also said that anything that forced them to give up sovereign territory was a non-starter for them. So, it doesn't seem like the parameters of this are being embraced by either side. We can tell.

Dutch chipmaker Nexperia has published an open letter calling on its China unit to restore supply chain operations. The company said it published the letter after repeated attempts to establish direct communications through conventional channels but did not get any quote meaningful response. Now, in the last few minutes, this is important. Nexperia China did respond with a statement saying there's no situation where quote it cannot be contacted. So that's kind of strange. It said the Dutch company has implemented destructive measures against its employees including deleting email accounts and terminating IT access and that it demands the company quote abandon improper intentions to replace Chinese capacity. Now why this matters? Well, it's a big problem for automakers because Nexperia makes billions of low tech chips that are used in cars. Connect the battery to the motors, for instance, lights to the sensors, braking systems to the airbag controllers, entertainment systems, all that stuff. Automakers have repeatedly warned of a looming shortage of these chips given that could halt production. So this appears to be kind of intra-company battle between Nexperia and its China unit which maybe was worried about some treatment of workers but they have phoned home it appears or at least issued a statement. So we'll see whether that actually affects the production of these chips or not but kind of a strange situation where they both went public. Nexperia saying please call us and the company in the Chinese unit saying we have and there's this issue. So, wow. That is a lot to take in. And by the way, there's a story on the front page of the Wall Street Journal today about a very interesting situation with Intel hiring a TSMC, a Taiwan semiconductor chip, executive and Taiwan now investigating that executive's residence, saying that they're worried he's going to be taking TSMC secrets with him back to Intel. He's Taiwanese, but he does have a PhD from Berkeley, and he worked at Intel starting in the 80s until 2004. He was responsible for a lot of Intel's superiority in the chips industry. He went on an advisory role for TSMC starting last year and the company was fine with that. They say they thought he was going back to academia, but when they found out he's going to Intel, it really sparked concerns. And I can understand that from Taiwan because if Taiwan doesn't have the US kind of beholden to its chips, it probably feels like it is much less secure in terms of a China take in terms of leverage for that. So, he's saying no way. Intel's saying they don't think there's any problem here that this is a spurious kind of investigation. But you start thinking from a nationalistic point of view from Taiwan to see what's happening with this. How the United States is so eager to make sure we are no longer as reliant on Taiwan or China or anybody else.

So it's geopolitically sensitive. It's also so commercially sensitive now because in this AI race, whoever gets the leg up in providing those chips, whether it's to Nvidia, whether it's to Google, whether it's to everyone else, I mean that is the growth, right? So if they've got secrets from TSMC that are useful in AI production, which I'm sure they are, and I'm sure that's the core of the issue.

Yeah, there's a lot of money, but it sounds like this guy in particular is like himself a walking reason, a guy who was very responsible at Intel for a lot of their growth for 20 plus years before going to TSMC. You didn't see the United States kind of saying you can't leave with those secrets when you go and you go over. By the way, maybe Intel just didn't have him.

Yeah. Well, but it's a... when he did, he was responsible for a lot of Intel superiority. When Intel was still leading, but you can bet the US government's going to have a say in this, too, because they now own 10% of Intel, right? So, from the geopolitical perspectives on this, things are going to get hotter and hotter.

Yeah, that's true.

Coming up next on Squawkpod, Black Friday's in full swing. Shopify President Harley Finkelstein has the data on when, where, and how consumers are shopping. This year, consumers are kind of starting with a TikTok video, then they're moving to the online store, then they're moving to Roblox, then they're going to the offline store. And so, we're trying to do with Shopify is power every single channel. Plus, CNBC's Courtney Reagan is on the ground at the mall. There's lines at Lululemon and Hollister sort of down this quarter. Lots of Gen Zers. We'll be right back.

You're watching Squawkbox right here on CNBC. I'm Becky Quick along with Steve Leeman and Robert Frank. Joe and Andrew are off today. The retail sector shifting into high gear for Black Friday. Our Courtney Reagan is live at the mall in Paramus, New Jersey with the setup. Courtney, what does it look like?

Hi, good morning Robert. Perfect timing because truly the stores are just opening right here behind me. Aritzia is the store right behind me. There has been a line that has been forming and everyone is flowing in. There's lines at Lululemon and Hollister sort of down this quarter. Lots of Gen Zers as you might expect hitting the stores early. And I can tell you from covering Black Friday over the last decade and a half, the cadence has changed for the day as far as when traffic peaks. But it is still a very, very important day for retail. The National Retail Federation, as a matter of fact, does predict that 130.4 million Americans will shop in some form today, making it the biggest day of this critical 5-day stretch between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday. Retail traffic counting firms forecast today will again be the biggest in-store shopping day of the year. Even if not as many shoppers line up for those door busters as in year past, still the biggest of 365 days of the year. Now, Adobe predicts the US online sales will hit nearly 12 billion today. That's up more than 8% from last year, which also is the biggest growth rate of the five big days between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday, what's often referred to as Cyber Week. Salesforce says the e-commerce sales on Black Friday did surpass Cyber Monday totals last year and think they will again this year. Now, consumers, they're already awake and shopping, yes, behind me, but also online. According to Captify's network of 3 million websites, the top searched retail brands on Black Friday compared to last Black Friday. Apple, those searches up 315%, H&M up 248%. Samsung up 133%. Marshalls, that's owned by TJX, up 116% and Adidas up 115%. Now, Thanksgiving Day, of course, the kickoff for what's considered this cyber week. As in recent years, orders surged post Thanksgiving dinner. Third party logistics company ShipBob says its peak was between 9 and 10:00 p.m. Thursday, and that peak hour was 182% higher traffic-wise than the day's low point, which was between 7 and 8:00 a.m. on Thanksgiving. Toys and games held the number one spot, led by sales of Tonies. That is one of those hot items, at least that was expected by retailers like Target and Walmart and Kohl's. ShipBob CMO Casey Armstrong is somewhat surprised that Beauty surged to the number two spot as far as categories go at 118% growth compared to this point last year. So, we will see what happens. But as the cadence has changed online with the peaks happening later in the day, same thing happens here in store. Yes, there's door busters, but in a lot of cases, the traffic really, really picks up as the day moves on. Back over to you guys.

Yeah, Court, you mentioned H&M and Marshalls as being two standouts there. Those are obviously price sensitive retailers. What do you see in terms of promotions, price promotions? Paramus has a pretty wide range of brands, but are you seeing any big sort of price promotions yet or do you think we're going to see those closer to Christmas?

So, I would call the promotions fairly typical from what you see on a Black Friday. So 30, 40% off in some cases, which are pretty big percentages off, particularly when you have a retailer like an H&M or behind me in Aritzia that is offering sort of a blanket discount across the store, which you don't often see for the rest of the year. But shoppers did tell Deloitte that they plan to spend about 4% less on this 5-day stretch. But remember, what shoppers say they'll do and then what they actually do can end up being very different. Look at the consumer confidence numbers we got from the government this past week. They were pretty dire. But when you look at what the retailers were seeing and what they saw, they said actually shoppers are buying, especially when you offer them something that they find value in. And value means more than just what it costs. But if it increases performance, if it's a sporting good, for example, is what Dick's Sporting Goods says, or it has newness as far as a fashion apparel item, consumers are buying it and even without a discount.

All right, Court. Thanks so much. Which I know we're going to see you throughout the day. And you'll tell us later, I'm sure, how many actual shopping bags are full later today as opposed to people just coming in.

Exactly. Thanks, Court.

Black Friday is in full swing this morning and our next guest is powering many of those sales. Harley Finkelstein is the president of Shopify. And Harley, thank you for coming in today.

You've got data that is not just up to the hour, but up to the almost minute.

Becky, get off the phone. As of... get off the road. No, but that 2.4 million as of when? I mean, since starting at midnight?

Exactly. That's exactly right. Let's go into top product categories. So right now, top product categories, skincare, vitamins, supplements, activewear.

So there is fit, wellness, fitness.

Skincare, vitamins, supplements, activewear. So people are shopping for themselves right now.

Only people who do yoga are shopping apparently.