VCR News and Press, Vanguard Consumer Discretion From 11/16/21

Emerging consumer trends this holiday season. How retailers are coping with supply crunch for the holidays. What brands are best positioned to pass on higher cost to customers? For further details see: Who Will Be The Winners And Losers Of This Holiday Season?

Retailers are getting ready to report Q3 2021 earnings. However, there is more negative guidance than positive. The Refinitiv U.S. Retail and Restaurant Q3 earnings index is expected to rise by 26.3%. American consumer confidence, as measured by the Refinitiv/Ipsos Primary Consume...

The sharp slowdown in US economic growth in the third quarter (driven by weaker consumer spending) surprised economists, but the case for a rebound in Q4 is building. The Chicago Fed’s weekly estimate of retail activity reflects an ongoing rise in spending through mid-October. ...

AIER’s Leading Indicators Index fell for a seventh consecutive month in October, hitting the neutral 50 mark. The Roughly Coincident Indicators index fell for the second consecutive month following a run of six consecutive months at 100. Capacity utilization fell a full per...

While gold has bounced, rallying 4% from the fall low, it remains stuck in a range, between $1,750 an $1,850 an ounce. Since the early spring gold’s correlation with U.S. equities has been around 0.4, well above the levels that prevailed last summer. While rising adaptation...

Policy markers insist on touting that inflation is only "transitory" as much as it can. This may serve their cause, but it has nothing to do with what's happening on the ground. Price pressures are running wild across almost every aspect of life. The implications of a "higher ...

The major US equity indices moved in concert, but the big disappointment so far this year has been small caps. Energy is clearly where the action is this year. After spending years at the bottom of the tables, Natural Gas, Gasoline, and Crude Oil now lead the pack. For furth...

Further to my comments in inventory build belies shortage hype, those in the business of selling the highest fee investment products also are interested in predicting rising prices to encourage buyers. It is also not surprising that cryptocurrency proponents (like Jack Dorsey and othe...

A dashboard with metrics in consumer cyclical subsectors. Value and quality scores, and their evolution since last month. VCR fast facts. A few cheap stocks. For further details see: VCR: Consumer Discretionary Dashboard For October

The port bottlenecks and supply shortages have caused goods shortages. Though, for proof that the supply chain disruption is not damaging the economy much, look no further than Friday’s report that retail sales rose 0.7% in September - a huge positive surprise, since economists wer...