Key Points Fundamentals in the housing market are not terribly inspiring – sales are still scraping along the bottom, rates remain stubbornly high, inventories are on the rise, delinquencies are ticking up, and home equity growth is slowing. We’ve been optimistic about housing-related stocks, and this report is a gut check of sorts.
Key Points: Leisure stocks swooned when macro concerns were running high and rate cuts were in the offing, but they rallied strongly as the market’s outlook on the economy became more sanguine and rate cuts became less likely. Restaurant stocks haven’t performed as well, and fast food and dine-in restaurants have been on different tracks. This report fuses top-down and bottom-up analytics to assess the outlook for food consumption and restaurant stocks, in particular. Quick-serve
Key Points: Investors in consumer stocks need to navigate a few crosscurrents. Earnings quality is poor with employment growth being driven by acyclical sectors and incomes being propped up by entitlements. A crackdown on immigration, tariff-induced inflation and stepped-up student debt collection may create some turbulence in the months ahead. At some point, fiscal stimulus will come to the rescue. There might be a good way to trade around each of these events, but our
It’s almost impossible to have a discussion about the consumer these days without a thorough understanding of government policy. Our recent reports and webinars have touched on tariffs, immigration and fiscal policy. This report focuses on household balance sheets with a particular emphasis on student debt. Government and the consumer are tied at the hip. Transfer payments have been accelerating and are adding a full point to personal income growth. Government employment has been responsible
Key Points: Rubinson Research has been in business for a little over three years. We were super bullish on the consumer in 2022, 2023 and most of 2024. We turned cautious last fall, but we’re striking a more neutral tone today. Join us for a webinar this Thursday to discuss the findings of this report and many other subjects. We model the risk posed by tariffs from the top down and the bottom up. Figures
Key Points: Immigration was among the markets primary concerns before tariffs stole the show. We think it’ll re-emerge as a key talking point before too long. Immigration has been contributing almost a full percentage point to population growth, triple its normal contribution. We analyze border crossings, work permit applications, and state-level employment dynamics to understand the effect reduced immigration might have on employment and aggregate demand. Traditional labor market surveys do not do a good
We’ve been getting a lot of questions from clients about the low-end consumer, so we assembled a deck of charts to walk through the pros and cons of betting on the low-end. There are a lot of variables to consider, and we walk through a chunk of them on this podcast, including job-finding prospects, wage growth, SNAP benefits, tariffs, interest rates, and stock price performance. As always, feel free to reach out with questions.
We hosted a webinar reviewing the changing landscape for the US consumer. We are entering a new phase and see weaker spending growth ahead. This has significant implications for portfolio weightings. We have lightened up on our exposure to leisure stocks and are instead recommending clients over-weight rate-sensitive durables like housing, autos, and RVs. We assess the odds of a recession emerging and take questions from clients.
Today we caught up with Ted Decker, the CEO of Home Depot. We talked about the health of the consumer, the state of the housing market, the “lock-in” effect, AI, and more. I asked how long the hangover in COVID-friendly categories like BBQ grills, outdoor furniture and washing machines might last. He compared the dynamic to a hurricane, which made a lot of sense to me. Home Depot has seen plenty of hurricanes over time, and they’re using those experiences to inform buying decisions. This…
Conversations with CEO/CFOs: We added a new feature to our “Up-to-Data” podcast series. This week’s issue features a 30-minute conversation with Ed Bastian, the CEO of Delta Airlines. Ed has led Delta’s employees, customers and shareholders through some turbulent times. In the process, he and the rest of the Delta team have built trust with customers (empathy), employees (no furloughs), and shareholders (no dilution). We talk about the state of the consumer, the outlook for growth in the airline industry, the potential for AI to…
This installment of our “Up-to-Data” podcast is more comprehensive than most. We take a step back to see what the latest data are telling us about the consumer. We cover the labor market, excess savings, the wealth effect, goods vs. services, household balance sheets, inventory dynamics, the housing sector, and leisure. Coming soon: Conversations with Corporate Execs. Many of our future podcasts will feature interviews with corporate executives. We’ll be talking to them about the consumer overall and trends in their business. Our first conversation…
The Presidential election is not far away, and this installment of our “Up-to-Data” podcast explores how policy might influence consumer behavior. When it comes to policy, there’s a lot to consider, and we’re especially attuned to distributional shifts that could occur as a result. The presentation also takes stock of household balance sheets, including the supply of credit. Finally, we touch on “inventory freshness” now that retailers have finished reporting Q1 results — the outlook for gross margins is still biased to the upside. The…