Posted on 08/17/2021 10:49:40 AM PDT by John W
Stocks fell in afternoon trading Tuesday, as data showed the coronavirus pandemic is still holding back the U.S. economy.
Americans cut back on their spending last month as a surge in COVID-19 cases kept people away from stores. Retail sales fell a seasonal adjusted 1.1% in July from the month before, the U.S. Commerce Department said Tuesday. It was a much larger drop than the 0.3% decline Wall Street analysts had expected.
According to Tuesday’s report, spending fell at stores selling clothing, furniture and sporting goods. At restaurants and bars, spending rose nearly 2%, but the rate of growth has slowed from recent months as the delta variant spread and people worried about dining with others.
The weak sales report dragged down companies that rely on discretionary spending from consumers. Ralph Lauren fell 3.5% and Whirlpool slipped 4.9%.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.com ...
Wait, Biden said he had a plan. He never said it was similar to his Afghan plan.
Of course inflation has nothing to do with it...
They are jumping to conclusions about why consumer sales are off. They could say covid, but for the most part the country is open. Inflation is up too but that should result in higher retail gross sales for at least two reasons: Higher prices, and demand pushed forward to avoid higher prices in the future.
Cost of housing could be a factor, as well as energy costs stripping dollars from consumer pockets.
more like they go down a point with every word from Jake Sullivan who is revealing how delusional Team White House is on Afghanistan (and much more...)
Inflation could have run down consumer savings or ability to purchase goods - it certainly runs down their purchasing power. But in theory it should push gross sales up. But only to a point I guess; because the consumer dollars are limited. First dollars go to necessities and I’d include energy in that basket.
We still have major supply chain problems to deal with. I’d expect total inflation to be at least 10% in the 2 year period from start of 2021 to end of 2022. That’s going to cause major purchasing power erosion. Higher prices, smaller sizes on the shelves.
They really don’t want to say the “I” word.
Yeah, off topic but are you listening to Jake Sullivan right now? He just said “Biden hasn’t spoken with any world leader this week”. WTH?
I’ll never understand why these ‘journalists’ feel so confident as to give a precise reason why the market moves in a certain direction - let’s face it, it could be the crisis in Afghanistan, these ‘weak’ retail numbers, or it could just be a pullback from the ATH values that the Dow and S&P500 reached yesterday (after more or less rising every day last week).
Transitory
Yawn. DOW down less than 1% so far today. Waiting on the 15 ~ 20 percent decline and perhaps I’ll nibble.
Markets seem to have became resistant to any corrections and short term downward trends. But, I’m patient.
So when these commies were pushing the mantra of “Build back better” was he speaking for the tollybon, the tallywagger trannys, or china?
Bullets, Beans and Gasoline are the only things I’ve been buying. ;)
1. Many products simply aren't available due to supply chain issues.
2. People who spent the last year buying sh!t just because they were stuck at home and couldn't spend money in the places they usually spent it (restaurants, gyms, specialty retail stores, etc.) have more sh!t than they need, and therefore don't need to buy more.
I heard this on the radio and noticed that they did not, as they always do, attribute the plunge to some world event. This was deliberate. The world event was the takeover of Afghanistan by bearded savages and the market prices took a dive.
The media would never tell us that, because it would put sleepy joe in a bad light.
Both of those are surely factors. Supply chain is a real serious issue, and ongoing. Producer input costs are through the roof and still rising, and the real impact of that won’t be fully felt by the consumer until next year. Cost to import anything from Asia is 3-5 times what it was a year ago and takes many weeks longer. And unfortunately most American producers are at least somewhat reliant on China in one or another way whether they like it or not.
“According to Tuesday’s report, spending fell at stores selling clothing, furniture and sporting goods...”
Uhh...some “sporting goods” are actually selling rather briskly!😎
The Feds have let it be known that they stand ready to come in with plenty of cash in case of a downturn. That leads to a stock market "We're bullet-proof" attitude that will evaporate when investors find out that it isn't.
IMO, before years end.
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