{"id":9438,"date":"2021-03-25T09:20:08","date_gmt":"2021-03-25T09:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zackspcg.com\/blog\/?p=9438"},"modified":"2022-02-26T13:05:52","modified_gmt":"2022-02-26T13:05:52","slug":"consumer-spending-outlook-for-the-months-ahead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/consumer-spending-outlook-for-the-months-ahead\/","title":{"rendered":"Consumer Spending Outlook For The Months Ahead"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Christie E. from\nSedona, AZ asks: <\/em>Hello Mitch, I work in retail and we\u2019ve seen some swings\nin spending over the past few months. Sometimes great, sometimes not. Curious\nif you have some thoughts as to when spending may go up and stay up?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mitch\u2019s Response:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thanks for writing, Christie. Recent data in the retail\nspending category bears out what you\u2019re seeing at your store. According to the\nCommerce Department report released last week, retail sales jumped 7.6%\nmonth-over-month in January, only to fall 3% from January to February. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There seem to be some pretty good explanations for the\ntopsy-turvy nature of the data. In December, cases were surging, and many\nAmerican households were awaiting stimulus payments that began to arrive\ntowards the end of the month. January saw many of those payments make their way\ninto consumer purchases, hence the boost.1<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It follows that February data was weak, as the one-time\nimpact of the stimulus payments wore off and the holiday spending push also\nfaded. Winter storms also play a role just about every year in softening\nspending figures, and 2021 was no exception, especially considering the crisis\nin Texas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The retail industry like\nthe market has been very volatile. With warmer weather coming and stimulus\npayments on the way, no one is completely sure how the market will react in the\nnext few months. Will consumer spending rise? Will volatility continue? Only\ntime will tell. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the meantime, the\nbest approach is to prepare for what\u2019s to come instead of making sudden\ndecisions. Finding the right investment strategy can help investors who are\nuncertain about their next step. The right strategy can make a huge difference\nin preparing your long-term investments for success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We now know that the passage of President Biden\u2019s $1.9\ntrillion will include even more direct payments to American families, including\n$1,400 checks to a majority of households and a substantial boost to the child\ntax credit which was also extended to families making no income. This\n\u2018helicopter money\u2019 is bound to make its way into the real economy, in my view,\nand I would suspect we see a boost to spending in March and April as a result. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, early credit card data from Bank of America ad JP\nMorgan already shows spending rebounding from February to March, so we can\nsafely assume that March will post fairly solid numbers in the retail spending\ncategory. As for your question regarding when spending may remain sustainably\nstrong, I think there is somewhat of a perfect storm arriving that could boost\nspending for many months to come. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, stimulus payments are arriving essentially any day\nnow. Second, you have vaccination rates rising at a strong clip, with at least\nhalf of American adults on schedule to receive one vaccine dose by the end of\nApril and two-thirds of people set to receive one by Memorial Day. And finally,\nwe have warmer weather on the way, which will inspire people to get outside\nmore and could lead to a concurrent increase in foot traffic to retail stores,\nrestaurants, and so forth. I\u2019m looking ahead to a strong economic spring and\nsummer, and think the retail sector will be a major beneficiary. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The key to managing the highs and lows of the market is\nfinding an investment strategy that meets your goals. Investors will see a huge\ndifference when they are prepared for what\u2019s to come instead of making sudden\nfinancial decisions. To help you learn more about strategies that cater to\ndifferent investment objectives, we have created our Dean\u2019s List of Investment\nStrategies.3<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our Dean\u2019s List describes five of our investment strategies\nthat are ranked in the top of their respective classes, according to\nMorningstar (as of 12\/31\/20).4<\/sup> If you have $500,000 or more to\ninvest and want to learn more about these strategies, click on the link below\nto see how they could potentially benefit you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Retail sales have been up and down so far this year, there are reasons to expect stronger consumer spending ahead <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7436,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[66,71],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mitchs-mailbox","category-private-client-group"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9438"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10427,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9438\/revisions\/10427"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}