Amazon (AMZN) reported today, December 26, that the holiday shopping season broke records for the company this year. Among other high-lights five million new customers started Prime free trials or paid memberships globally, and the number of items delivered with one-day or same-day shipping quadrupled compared to the 2018 holiday season.
As of 3 p.m. New York time shares of Amazon were up 4.33%, helping drive the NASDAQ Composite Index above 9,000 for the first time ever.
And consumers weren’t just good to Amazon. Online sales during the period from November 1 thorough December 24Â Â grew almost 19% compared to last year, according to Mastercard Spending Pulse Overall holiday sales grew by 3.4%. (Online sales now make up almost (or only ) 15% of total retail holiday sales.)
Meanwhile, consumer confidence in Bloomberg’s index rose to a nine-week high of 62.3 in the week ended December 22 from 61.1, according to data released Thursday. Confidence in the economy rose to highest level since the end of July.
The 2019Â average sentiment level is on track for the best year since the 1999-2000 dot-com boom, according to the Bloomberg survey.
