Consumer credit showing signs of stress
The typical pattern is for households to run up credit card balances for holiday shopping and then for consumers to pay down credit card balances in the first quarter. That’s what happens in a healthy economy where consumers are living within their means and...
Please Watch My New YouTube Video: Trend of the Week How Tired Is the Consumer?
Today I posted my two-hundred-and-forty-second YouTube video: Trend of the Week: How Tired Is the Consumer? This week’s Trend of the Week is How Tired Is the Consumer? Consumer spending makes up 70% of the economy, so if consumers get tired and start spending...
Walmart’s caution a red flag on consumer spending: stocks fall today
Today, February 21, Walmart (WMT) reported s 76% year-over-year jump in earnings to $1.71 a share. Wall Street analysts had forecast earnings of $1.52 a share for the fourth quarter. Revenue rose 7.3% to $164 billion. Comparable store sales gained 8.3%. The company...
The consumer is getting stretched: credit card debt rises by $46 billion in the second quarter
Credit card debt rose in the United States from April through June by $46 billion, a 5.5% increase over the first quarter, as Americans borrowed billions of dollars to continue spending, according to a report on Tuesday, August 2, from the Federal Reserve Bank of New...
Consumer savings rate plunges to post-Great Recession low; bad news on recession odds
A deeply troubling look at consumer balances from Statista. Well, deeply troubling if you hope that the United States will avoid a recession. (Frankly, I’m in the “Hope we avoid but I’m afraid we won’t camp.”) In April, Americans saved...
Please watch my new YouTube video: “My fear is a credit crunch”
My one-hundredth-and-thirty-third YouTube video “My fear is a credit crunch” went up today. My fear is a credit crunch. I’m not as concerned with the Fed raising rates, or a recession–those are sort of run of the usual events. But a credit...
Visa’s earnings beat one more sign that post-Pandemic travel is back
After hours on Tuesday, April 26, Visa (V) reported earnings of $1.70 a share. That modestly beat analyst projections of $1.65 a share for the quarter. But it was a big jump from the $1.35 a share in the first quarter of 2021. Visa said payment volumes rose 17% and...
Headed your way–a flood of numbers on the economy; here’s my preview
Data, data everywhere in the next two days. From inflation to GDP. To begin with the Bureau of Economic Analysis is scheduled to report first quarter U.S. GDP growth on April 28. Economists expect to see that the economy has grown at an annualized rate of just 1.1% in...
Headed your way–a flood of numbers on the economy; here’s my preview
Data, data everywhere in the next two days. From inflation to GDP. To begin with the Bureau of Economic Analysis is scheduled to report first quarter U.S. GDP growth tomorrow, April 28. Economists expect to see that the economy has grown at an annualized rate of just...
Post-Pandemic-Stimulus “excess” savings look set to disappear for low income consumers in early 2022–that’s not a plus for U.S. economic growth
Lags are one of the toughest things to get right in figuring out how the economy operates and where it’s headed. For the last half of 2021 as the big Pandemic stimulus cash flows first fell and then dried up completely, economists have been looking for signs of...
October retail sales come in with 1.7% increase from September, most in 7 months
U.S. retail sales rose in October for a third month. The value of overall retail purchases increased 1.7% last month, the most in seven months, the Commerce Department said today, November 16. Excluding gas and motor vehicles, sales gained 1.4% in October. The figures...
Projections for Christmas spending by consumers sure make it look like inflation expectations are rising
Consumers’ holiday spending intentions are a tad lower than in 2020, according to the latest survey from the Conference Board. On average, consumers intend to spend $648 on gifts this holiday season, according to the survey. That’s down from $673 in 2020. But it...
Economy grows at an annualized 6.4% rate in the first quarter
In the first quarter the economy grew by 1.6%. That’s equal to an annualized growth rate of 6.4% for U.S. GDP. You don’t have to look hard to find the cause. Consumer spending rose 2.6 percent in the first three months of the year, with a 5.4% increase in...
The consumer credit crunch rolls on
Capital One Financial (COF), the third-largest U.S. credit card lender, is cutting borrowing limits on it credit cards. The company has said it’s no big deal, telling Bloomberg that “Capital One periodically reviews accounts based on a variety of factors and may...
U.S. consumers deliver the sugar plums for holiday shopping
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...
August numbers say U.S. consumer is in decent shape; business investment still lags
Consumer spending on goods and services, which accounts for about two-thirds of gross domestic product, increased by just 0.1% in August from July, the smallest gain in six months, according to the Commerce Department today. Personal income was up 0.4% in August....
GDP grows at annualized 3.5% in third quarter, but…
Real GDP (that is GDP discounting any gains from inflation) increased at an annualized rate of 3.5% in the third quarter. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com were looking for 3.3% growth rate. In the second quarter GDP grew at an annualized rate of 4.2%. Big driver in...
Second quarter GDP forecasts start to come back to earth
Not so long ago major economic forecasts such as the GDPNow forecast from the Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank were calling for second quarter U.S. GDP to grow at an annual rate of better than 4%. That was extraordinarily strong growth and it fit in with forecasts from...
Decent retail sales in April point to likely rebound in consumer spending from first quarter weakness
Not great numbers but strong enough. For April it looks like a strong job market and higher take-home pay more than balanced out higher gasoline prices. Gas prices are now at their highest level since 2014. (Typically when gas prices climb, consumers cut back spending...
U.S. stocks rally on good economic news and end of the quarter window dressing
U.S. stocks are up as of 1:30 p.m. today. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is ahead 0.95% and the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index is up 1.08%. Two reasons for this, I think, and the second is more important today. First, we had a raft of positive economic...
A Fed interest rate increase in June? Consumer spending says, Yes; Inflation slowdown says, Maybe
Consumer spending picked up in April, signaling that growth in the economy as a whole is headed for a rebound after a weak first quarter. Purchases increased by 0.4% in April, matching projections from economists surveyed by Bloomberg, after a 0.3% gain in March, the...
No sign U.S. economic growth accelerating in today’s income report
Personal income in February rose by 0.4% month over month in February, the Commerce Department reported today. That matched economists’ expectations. But personal spending notched only a small gain of 0.1%, below expectations for a 0.2% increase. The Personal...
U.S. GDP grows by a lower than expected 1.9% year over year in the fourth quarter
The U.S. economy slowed to grow at a 1.9% annualized rate in the fourth quarter, the Commerce Department reported today. That’s down from the 3.5% growth rate for GDP in the third quarter. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had forecast 2.2% growth. For the full...
How long will consumers dip into savings to keep spending?
Yesterday I wrote >https://jubakpicks.com/what-me-worry/ that the combination of slower GDP growth (1.2%) in the second quarter plus declining consumer sentiment worried me. Continued strong consumer spending–household consumption grew at a 4.2% rate–in...
What me worry?
Am I the only one who finds Friday’s GDP report of 1.2% annualized growth worrying? Especially when combined with a drop in consumer sentiment? What’s bothering me? The deeply disappointing second quarter GDP number was only as good as it was because...Consumer spending picks up in December on faith that income growth is on the way
And in market moving news from somewhere other than Egypt… In the United States consumer spending, which makes up about 70% of U.S. economic activity in the U.S., rose more than forecast in December, according to data released by the Commerce Department on January 31....Li & Fung bets that Beijing is serious about growing China's consumer economy
Li & Fung, the biggest supplier to Wal-Mart, is convinced that China’s leaders will carry through on their talk of shifting the country’s economy toward domestic consumption and away from exports. The company is looking to buy Chinese companies in the fashion,...Beijing moves to reduce the profitability of China's big export companies
Forget about trying to outguess the People’s Bank of China on interest rate increases. On the fundamentals, China’s stocks got more expensive and less attractive for 2011 because of two end-of-the year announcements from the government in Beijing. Each announcement...Shoppers open up their wallets on the first shopping weekend of the holiday retail season
Too early to call it a trend, but the retail shopping numbers over the Thanksgiving weekend that traditionally kicks off the holiday shopping season were encouraging to those of us projecting a decent 2% or so increase in retail sales this year. The average U.S....Jim’s Daily Email Alerts:
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