What is the best way to understand the impact of confidence on spending? Of late, the only thing that’s clear is that the relationship is far from direct. In May, the post-election runup in consumers’ spending confidence—which has been led by…
The trend in retail spending suddenly looks much weaker through April—partly as a result of revisions to the government-reported retail data. December holiday results also were revised downward. Sales excluding autos and fuel are growing roughly between 2.5% and 3.5% in…
U.S. job growth in April returned to the strong pace of the start of the year, but the regional momentum remains mixed and skewed toward the Western and Southeastern states. A pickup in energy and mining-related jobs among goods industries is…
Spending confidence among Boomers surpassed Millennials in April, defying a longstanding pattern of behavior in which younger people are always more optimistic than older people. A clear benefit to store-based retailers—which had previously benefited from Boomers’ spending—remains elusive. Although topline retail…
Retail spending—excluding autos and fuel—looked better in March as a whole. Outside of online sales, however, most retail sectors showed weakness in one way or another. Weather likely contributed to some of the month-to-month weakness at a range of mostly homegoods-related…
Surging spending confidence among Boomers makes them a renewed target—albeit a challenging one—for marketers in the short term as spending plans bottom out among Millennials and plateau among Gen X shoppers. That’s the takeaway from data through March from the Spending…
Retail spending is showing some positive signs through February. The signs, however, depend on how you look at the latest government data. The signs are positive from a seasonally adjusted view of retail sales gains year-to-year. Those sales are up 4.3%…