Key Points: After being steadfastly bullish on the consumer for two and a half years, we became more cautious back in July. We don’t see a major problem ahead, but our forecasts call for a considerable slowdown in spending growth. We think we’ve got the general direction right, but there’s plenty of uncertainty to go around. The data have also been a moving target, so we think it makes sense to be prepared for a

Key Points: For those interested in the distribution of things, there’s been a treasure trove of data released over the past few weeks. In this report we analyze trends using the American Time Use Survey, the Fed’s Distributional Financial Accounts, and the Consumer Expenditure Survey. We tease out important trends by age, income and generation from each of those data sets.

Key Points: This report introduces a new framework that we call “In the Weeds”. By dissecting business models into their component parts, we can understand what makes companies tick. The first iteration of the framework focuses on dollar stores, home improvement stocks, specialty retailers, and mass merchants. Over time, we intend to add other industries to our arsenal. We analyze ~25 companies on traditional metrics that include sales per square foot, operating margins, inventory turnover,

Key Points: Goods are coming back in style, and that’s one of the key reasons we shifted our industry weightings a few months ago – out of leisure stocks and into rate-sensitive durables. In this report, we analyze retail stocks that should also benefit from a return to spending on goods. We put forth three unique ways to analyze retailers: (i) sales per square “footprint”, (ii) inflation-adjusted same store sales, and (iii) inventory “freshness”. Sales

Key Points: Employment is the engine of consumption growth, and it’s shifted into low gear. The aim of this report is to determine whether monetary policy will soften the blow. We assess the effect lower rates might have on (i) the consumers’ P&L, (ii) the low-end consumer, (iii) spending on goods versus services, (iv) the housing market, and (v) home values.

After turning more cautious on the consumer, we’ve received a lot of questions from clients. This report seeks to address those queries while adding a healthy dose of micro analysis to our macro call. We share updated thoughts on autos, RVs, housing-related stocks, staples, and leisure. We also dig into historical return profiles of consumer stocks.