Black Friday Sales Etched in Red Ink?
Thursday November 20, 2008 04:11:00 EST

(RTTNews) - Expectations as well as apprehensions have begun to loom around Wall Street as another crucial holiday spending season is set to unravel with Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. Although the first use of the term 'Black Friday' is not exactly known, many consider it as the official beginning of the holiday shopping season.

According to a popular theory, stores that are operating at a financial loss for most of the year will turn to a profit during the holiday selling season following Thanksgiving. In common accounting practices, red ink is used to show negative amounts and black ink to show positive amounts. Based on that, the Friday after Thanksgiving Thursday is the beginning of the period where stores turn to black from red, i.e. from loss to profit. (continued...)