Key Points: As investors get back to work, we thought it would be a good idea to explore a variety of subjects that clients are asking about. The topics range from macro to micro. Our macro work says there’s a soft patch ahead. Our micro work seeks to identify stocks that can work in that setting. Is the consumer strong or weak? This should be an easy question, but there’s room for debate. Consumer sentiment

Key Points: Asset-light business models used to be all the rage, but asset productivity has been falling for the past few years, and we’re likely to see more of the same in 2025 and 2026. Capex to sales for the market is on track to surpass 8% this year, and the tech sector will be north of 10% – both have historically been closer to 6%. Investments in AI and elsewhere may pay off handsomely

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

Key Points: “Liberation Day” sparked a dramatic selloff, but we think there are other reasons to be concerned about the consumer. Employment growth is lopsided, PCE growth has been of low quality, immigration will soon begin to weigh on aggregate demand, real wages are already slowing, and the “wealth effect” is reversing. The market’s knee-jerk reaction was to snap up consumer staples. We think housing-related stocks are the better bet. The existing home market has

Key Points: Companies have begun to signal that 2025 is off to a rough start. We’ve heard rumblings of a weaker consumer before, but our math said they would power through, and they did. This time feels different. The effects of immigration and DOGE on the job market have yet to take hold. We see a (0.5)% headwind to PCE from immigration and a (0.2)% impact from DOGE. On a probability-weighted basis, we see a