We kevin here so since january. We've been talking about a lot of pain pain coming to markets. That's one of the reasons that i sold and rebought lower levels and i know i could have bought a little bit lower. But i played a trade and i'm happy it mostly worked out.

But one of the concerns about markets continuing to potentially rotate down is obviously the fear of recession. And is there the potential that the fear of a recession could be overblown is it possible that we're not actually in a recession. Right now. We're just in a series of deflationary or sort of should.

I say disinflationary growth figures. Which is also sometimes referred to as a growth recession. See there are a lot of things to think about when it comes to definitions. But let's keep this simple and straight a recession is negative gdp for two quarters in a row.

A growth recession is negative growth for two quarters in a row. But still a positive read. So what does that look like well think about this. Let's say.

The gdp number is a hundred to make things simple and then we have growth of 10 in the first quarter followed by 10 in the second quarter. When we compare from the next year right so the next year could be here and when we compare over oh. It's ten percent. It's ten percent okay well a growth recession might be something like this where we still have growth.

But that difference right there is two percent growth or one percent growth. So we're still growing. We're just growing a whole lot fast less fast than what we did during the crazy pandemic induced stimulus era of covid so it's entirely possible that maybe we avoid a recession completely and we just have a growth recession and an earnings recession. But what data that came out today might make us think that this is possible well folks you know me i'm all about data.

I'm not into cnbc headlines and just summarizing crap. I want to give you the stuff that nobody else is giving you the real data. So that way you can understand what to look for because if i can teach you how to fish. Then you can fish for food yourself.

And that's the most important thing rather than spoon feeding your headlines. Let's get into the actual numbers. We've got to understand first retail sales came out this morning and boy oh boy. They were actually impressive so retail sales.

Okay and we'll see this as a month over month change right here came in at one percent. Which is good now if we subtract out gas. We still had positive growth here that's the white line. If we now subtract.

Some of the volatile items like food autos building materials and gas and we look at this on a month over month chart. What do we get folks we get the firmest retail sales data growth since january. Now keep this in mind this data is what's known as nominal data nominal data means it's not yet adjusted for inflation so absolutely inflation is going to have an impact on this number. But that's what we saw in may see in may retail sales came in at negative point.

Three percent. That was actually revised this month to oh wait may was actually only negative point one percent. Which is a whole lot better than negative point three percent. Because it gets us closer to zero or positive.

Which is good for gdp purposes. And making sure we stay out of a technical recession again two quarters of negative gdp. We want to get core and this is month over month data but we want to get that quarterly retail sales data to be positive now who knows maybe it's. Rigged but what's important here is that we went from a negative 01.

Percent in may to a positive 1 in june that's actually really really good. And this is a very good trajectory and now does this align with what banks and other institutions are telling us or are we being blown and spoon fed smoke and junk and crap well let's take a look at some other charts. And some of the other data and then we've got to talk about something really really important and this has to do with something that's really going to affect the fed okay ready for this first what did jamie dimon yesterday tell us from the jpmorgan earnings consumer really strong consumer not showing signs of weakness what did wells fargo tell us this morning in their earnings even though their earnings expectations were 80 cents. And they had an earnings per share of 74 cents.

And even though they took about a hundred million dollars more in allowance for credit losses than were expected and even though their stock turned red. What did the ceo and cfo. Tell us no meaningful deterioration in the consumer. Yet credit quality remains strong and the consumer is in quite good shape.

Though they expect the lower income consumer to get hurt first which we've talked about forever. That the lower income lower income consumers get hit by inflation first and hardest. But then wait a minute. We correlate that with this chart and things don't line up here.

Because why is it and this is a chart we looked at yesterday as well. But why is it that just in the last couple months. We're actually seeing all quartiles of income see their median checking account balances go up not down we're not seeing the degradation of consumer balances in their checking accounts that we would ordinarily expect in a recession. We're not seeing the defaults you ordinarily would expect to see in a recession and we're still not seeing consumer spending after six months of titanic warnings remember i made that titanic video of people hodling on and paper handed okay we have still and then of course other people copied it we have still not seen that degradation with negative growth in consumer spending.

What we have seen is a deceleration of spending and that's very very important to understand the difference of take a look at this this is a chart that i'm going to show you from barclays and barclays. Provided us the following. They said that actual year over year sales growth per quarter. Is this uh sort of orange align.

That we have right here forecast with the dotted line uh and then we have this worst case scenario. What barclays thought was right here this is sort of this dark purple line. That's a little hard to see and they believe that even though markets are expecting a certain consensus that is either this orange line here or potentially this purple line. What barclays thinks is actually going to happen to year over year consumer discretionary spending is this line right here.

Now. What's remarkable about this is this line goes all the way to december 22. And notice what it does not do folks. It does not cross this right here.

Why is that important because this line right. Here is the zero percent growth line. And it does not cross that which means even though growth over and above last year might be nominal even in worst case scenario outlooks from barclays. We still don't see negative retail.

Spent. Which is really interesting that people continue to spend i mean i'm in europe. I'm spending money. I'm seeing other people spend money i'm talking to the store owners of samsonite restaurants hotels and i'm figuring out hey.

What's going on and you know what i'm consistently being told and then i got to tell you about the important data that just came out about the fed they're all telling me the same thing. It's a whole lot better than q. One remember. January.

Was omicron. Feb. And early march was putin right q2. It's like all right we know omicron putin inflation we got it we got the story people out there spending money it's kind of crazy.

It's kind of crazy people are still spending money paying for those courses linked down below. As well you don't believe it. But i get comments every single day from people going dude. I saved so much more money than your course costs with the lowe's benefits alone with all the benefits that you get in the program.

You provide more value than any course member or course. I've ever bought in my in my life is what people tell me that's my goal is i want to be the person who's known for providing more value in fact. I trademarked the slogan providing more because of that. But what's this important fed data that just came out that's so critical for us that uh well at least.

It's data that will influence the fed that also relates to well our favorite the consumer well folks. It has to do with inflation expectation numbers if you watch my videos you already know that inflation expectations per. The bond market have been plummeting and you already know that inflation expectations are absolutely critical to what the federal reserve does as soon as it looked like in june inflation expectations were going to run away from the federal reserve. They hiked 75.

When the market was initially thinking 50 bp as soon as those consumer expectations came out the fed's like uh uh 75. Going 75. Because they need consumer expectations and the market's expectations for inflation to remain. What's known as anchored.

Now this is actually what's very different from the 70s. The late 1970s to today in the late 1970s expectations for inflation by both the market and the consumer skyrocketed that means. Everybody thought that inflation was going to run away. And we were going to basically debase the dollar.

More than even the way we feel it's being debased today. And basically the dollar would become worthless. So you're better off buying any kind of potential junk out. There.

Because anything you buy is going to do better than inflation. Uh or or leaving. Essentially your your wealth in cash. Because it's just going to get destroyed by inflation.

That was the thesis in 1979 and the early 80s and that was measured by inflation expectations absolutely running away from us. Fortunately today we have both two things going on one we have market expectations for inflation. Remaining relatively stable and the way. We measure those is we look at what are called break even yields.

This is the market's expectation set for inflation. As you can see it's absolutely been plummeting. So what about the consumer well we just got some new consumer data out this morning and this is going to be critical for the federal reserve first it's worth noting that the last set of numbers that we had were that one year expectations for inflation would be. 53.

Percent the 5 to 10. Year expectations for inflation last read were 31. Percent. The expectations.

Today were that we were going to see five point three percent again and uh that's on the one year and that on the five to ten year. We would see three percent that was the expectation well folks that's not actually what we got here's what we got we got one year consumer expectations for inflation coming in at 52. Percent. That's really good that's in the direction.

That we want to go and the 5 to 10 year came in at 28. This is great not only are consumer expectations for inflation stable. But now they're actually declining just a day after we got a horrible cpi print. And following june's a terrible release of cpi for the month of may which we thought that inflation expectations would actually skyrocket after last month's cpi read.

But now we got this information here that consumer expectations for inflation have actually gone down not up their consumers are almost matching. What the bond market is thinking and we don't know if this is because the federal reserve is directly appealing to consumers now and speaking directly to americans that inflation is just too high and they'll stop at nothing to get it down. They're trying to establish the credibility that the fed didn't have back in the 70s right. And that's why we had to get volcker involved well folks.

Whatever the fed is doing it seems to be working. Because retail sales are coming in stronger. People are expecting inflation to go down in the future. Whether it's in the market or it's consumers jp morgan wells fargo.

We're seeing the consumer is still strong we're seeing cash balances go up worst case scenario reads. By barclays show that consumer spending is still expected to be positive by the end of the year and sure we could get a bunch of misses on earnings or earnings per share in here q2 earnings because we're going into earnings season. We could get a ton of garbage from this and we could have a plummet in the stock market with some major capitulation. But when it comes to the actual consumer and what's actually happening in the market.

It doesn't look like the consumer. Really cares so much about this idea of a recession coming they're still spending money. And what's remarkable about that is if the consumer actually prevents us from falling into a recession. Well maybe that means.

We've actually hit a bottom in the stock market remember this chart folks. This is a critical one. See this one here shows us that if we are to go through a recession. We need to look at this white line here and this white line says that we still have a couple bottoms to go if we are going to end up being in a recession.

Which that definition comes in hindsight. If we do not have a recession then the low that we've already experienced in the nasdaq of uh well i like to use qqq of 268 might potentially end up being the bottom as we follow this no recession gray line. And we approximately have a bottom here that's in play that is entirely a potential now no guarantees. But obviously if we don't actually hit a recession market should be a whole lot happier than if we really do hit a recession.

And i hate to say it. But if the banks really thought oh man we're about to go through a nasty recession. Don't you think their allowances for credit losses. Would be substantially higher than what they are now now we talked about this yesterday.

So i don't want to sound redundant. I already know that you know the courses are linked down below and there's a coupon code and the price goes up every couple weeks by about 50 bucks and that's okay because we keep adding value and you all appreciate that so you know to get in before the coupon expires. But even though that coupon expiration is sneaking up on us again we're going to have another big boost of the prices. Before our series a launch.

Which you have to be a course member to get in the first round of the series a launch on august 1st you may as well use this coupon code before it expires. What do we have here we have the banks telling us. This is jpmorgan that no we're not actually going to take that crazy amount of allowance for doubtful accounts for credit losses. This was covet when everything really hit the fan.

And we thought consumers were just going to absolutely drop everything. This is what we're doing now folks in relation. This is nothing and so maybe maybe i don't want to be the person that says the word so i'm just going to write it on screen. Here okay.

I don't want to necessarily say that but i wouldn't want to be sitting out the market right now. Because personally i think that if folks are just reading cnbc headlines and they're not actually looking at these charts. They're going to have a lot of fear they're going to write comments about how they are living in montana. Now living with cash and they've sold everything and they're going to miss.

What is potentially a once in a decade opportunity to invest. Because you have to think to yourself hey in 2024 2025. 6. 7.

8. 9. 10. Are we really.

If we just went through a near recession or even recession are we really going to have a better opportunity to buy in 24 25. 26. 27. Maybe nobody knows we don't have a crystal ball.

But my opinion the odds are quite unlikely good luck out there check out the programs on building your wealth link down below. I sponsor myself and provide as much value as possible to all of you especially those of you in the program. So i'm building your wealth you get that lowe's partnership. You get the trade alerts you get trade.

Idea. Alerts. Now live. Streams and q.

A with me fundamental analysis. Real. Estate analysis. There are very few people who do both real estate and stocks so check it out link below.