FSTA News and Press, Fidelity MSCI COnsumer Staples Index From 05/23/22

Our rising price problem is, more than anything, a supply problem, and reducing demand is certainly one way to tackle it. But returning to the pre-COVID growth rate doesn’t mean we are headed to recession, that contraction is in our immediate future. US stocks and REITs wer...

Until this week, that maxim seemed to be working in the current market as well, with both Target and Walmart as well as basic consumer goods companies in general holding their values better than the broader market indexes. To be sure, the news was not all bad. Sales for both Walmart a...

Latest 12 months wholesale price inflation ran 11%. Walmart and Target have big 2Q earnings misses. Oops! Retail demand does not seem to be the problem. In a market where computers and ETFs have no discernment, everything goes on sale. Retail may be uniquely advantaged when it...

Consumer sentiment has dropped to the lowest level in more than a decade. Average hourly earnings have risen by 5.5% over the last year. It appears Americans have taken on an “eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die” attitude. For further details see: W...

Target followed in the footsteps of Walmart with its worst single-day reaction to earnings on record according to the data in our Earnings Explorer, and its worst day overall since the 1987 crash. Given the two are some of the largest publically traded retailers, broad measures of the...

However American consumers may feel, retail sales continue to climb. The Census Bureau’s latest data show solid gains outside of the virtual shopping malls, too. Headline sales (seasonally adjusted) rose much more than expected in April 2022, increasing 0.9% from March’s...

Retail sales jumped 0.9% in April from March, after having jumped 1.4% in March from February, to $678 billion, and were up 8.2% from a year ago, seasonally adjusted, the Commerce Department reported on Tuesday. Raging inflation has outpaced the income growth of many Americans, and th...

In real terms, total retail sales were up 0.6 percent following a 0.2 percent increase in March and are now showing stronger upward trends. Nonstore retailers and automotive retailers followed with 2.2 percent increases, while food services and drinking establishments (restaurants) ha...

A significant decline in the US retail footprint is imminent as sales continue to shift online, turbocharging the next leg of digital advertising spending in the US. Although the US e-commerce penetration scaled from less than 5% of total retail sales in 2011 to nearly 14% in 2021, it...

Consumer spending rose by 2.7% in Q1, annual rate, adjusted for raging inflation. Gross private domestic investment rose by 2.3% annualized, following the spectacular spike in Q4. Less-catastrophic imports, thereby a less-catastrophic trade deficit, will reduce the drag on GDP. ...