Okay, retail sales numbers coming. Two quick notes: I'm going to be in the air flying today so you can follow me on Instagram to see what I'm up to. I'll be at a special place and you're gonna see a lot of cool stuff. so follow me on.

Instagram And we did extend the flash sale to the end of the week for those of you who emailed us and for anyone else, 69 off largest percentage basis sale for the programs I'm building your rough link down below. Okay retail sales numbers coming out in 30 seconds. Here's the expectation: The expectation for retail sales month over month is a two percent increase up from the negative 1.1 percent. Previously, X Auto is looking for a 0.9 increase X Autos and gas looking for a 0.9 increase.

All of the numbers in the last report were negative. All December numbers were negative. January We're expecting positive numbers. Retail Sales Control Group one percent.

the numbers come out within about the next 10 seconds. So buckle up folks! This could be a market mover. What do we got with retail sales? Are people spending money or not? Empire Manuf Okay, holy crap. retail sales come in hot Three percent.

The expectation month over month was two percent. Oh my. God Everything's Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Retail sales X Autos Month over month Expected: 0.9 we got 2.3 We got 2.6 on X autos and gas. Retail Sales Control group comes in hot as well.

1.7 Holy shnices, What recession folks. Holy crap people are right back to spending what recession you've got the NASDAQ trying to take down a little bit on this? You got a red. Candlestick On the result of this news, the NASDAQ dropping about 20 basis points initially on this. but what recession folks? Holy Smokes, these are incredible numbers on retail sales.

Again, retail sales Advance Beating by a full one percent. Not only are retail sales beating by one percent on the month of a month, but again. X Autos Xgas Massive beats Uh Beats by uh, by 1.4 Uh to as much as uh oh my Lord uh, that's uh, that's actually uh, that's a 1.4 beat and that's a 1.7 beat. Holy moldy, these are crazy numbers.

Let's go ahead and actually look at the the charts to see what's going on with retail sales. For people apparently spending money like crazy? Uh, this is actually something that American Express warned about, right? Remember America What did American Express say American Express Said people are spending through the recession. That's what American Express told us. and so what do we actually have here on the retail sales report.

Monthly retail sales estimates have been revised? Uh, yep, they okay. The fall of last month, they actually revised X Autos month over month from negative 1.1 to negative point nine from negative 0.7 for X autos and gas to negative 0.4 So the last numbers were revised better as well. Holy Smokes, look at that. January 2023 three percent Advanced monthly sales This is a big old boom right over here.

Uh, let's see what we got: Advanced Estimates of retail food and service sales for January 2023 Adjusted for seasonal variations, holiday and trading day differences, but not for price changes, We're up three percent. Total sales were up 6.1 percent from the same period a year ago. What recession? Retail trades were up 2.3 percent. Uh, from December of 2022.

Food and service. Holy crap. Food and service and drinking place Food Services And drinking places were up 25.2 percent from January of 2022. Sorry guys.

I Spent a lot of time at restaurants in 2022. mostly food, some drinking while general merchandise stores were up 4.5 ads. People aren't buying stuff. Man, people are going out getting drinks and food.

This is nuts. Wow. Okay, Uh, so I Want to see some more of the charts here? Uh, let's see if we can get a little bit more. This is just some more info.

Oh, here we go. here are the charts. Let's also see what the suits are saying about this because this is remarkable. I Mean this is a crazy beat here on a retail sales.

Really, really incredible. Let's see what where this is. So first we're going to look at the let's look at the adjusted for a moment. Here we're going to look at the second column on the right and uh, potentially you know the easiest way to do this is let's look at the we'll look at the non-adjusted number here and then we'll also look at the adjusted number here.

I'm circling it just so when we zoom in, it's a little easier to look at. So what do we have here? General merchandise stores? Okay, what's the change here? Oh, these are just nominal numbers. That does me a little good. I Want the percent change? Okay, well, that's over here.

That's a second column in. so let's look at the second column in for the one month change. What do we have? Uh, that's 3.4 percent in general a merchandise department stores. 3.1 percent.

So if you're into like Macy's and stuff like that, 3.1 percent not actually that high you've got Electronics This is non-store retailers. This is like your Etsy right here. 5.7 percent. much higher than what you actually have for your merchandising stores.

so that's pretty substantial food and drinking places. thank you very much. Uh, 24. That's insane.

Holy Smokes clothing. We saw this in the CPI numbers. People spending a ton of money again on clothing. What the hell? Six point six percent.

who's buying new clothes right now I Thought that was like after the the pandemic, everybody went out to go buy clothes. This is crazy. Market's actually stable Market Barely cares. The market barely cares.

Look at this from one. I Mean this could change during the day, but what did I tell you earlier in this live? I told you earlier I Go look. The market cares about a recession right now. Uh, and and what? and earnings per share.

And what are these numbers telling us? EPS Go Moon Baby Moon Two-week call options. Yes, no, don't do that. It's not. Advice: Gasoline stations up 5.1 Health and Personal Care stores 4.9 There's Beauty for you food and beverage stores.

Look, people don't care about grocery stores right now. Uh, even though that's up 5.8 percent, The big number is food and drinking. Uh, you know it's It's almost like people are like buying private jets and and flying around to different restaurants and different places, going to have drinks with people who are hanging out with them and shadowing them. This is crazy.

Look at this. electronics and appliance stores. Minus 6.5 Getting smashed over here. The electronics people.

just people just want entertainment. Who's more entertaining? Oh never mind. Uh Furniture Home Furnishings Four and a half percent. That's pretty nominal.

It's probably one of the weaker categories motor vehicle and parts. That's actually surprisingly low for motor vehicle and parts. So people spending less money on their cars, more money just drinking. uh, and of course eating.

Uh, it's not. The only thing you can go out for is drinks. you can go out to like Escape rooms drunk. or you could go to ax throwing drunk.

or you could go you know to a movie theater job I'm sorry. uh. Anyway, so retail, uh. total retail 6.7 increase.

This is these are the I mean this is just these are insane numbers. Uh, absolutely insane numbers. So this is a crazy retail sales report shows us where people are going. Okay, this is the Uh.

so those were what do we have here. This is retail Total Motor Vehicle Parts. Okay, okay, these are pretty darn similar. We already talked about those preliminaries.

We talked about these. Okay, just trying to get a little bit more color here. I mean this. This is a phenomenal, phenomenal report for retail sales and you won't believe this.

Okay, you won't believe this. Remember how I said earlier that what everyone cares about right now is EPS right? They're We're over inflation. The inflation story is over. And how is the market reacting right now to a crazy retail sales report which should make us nervous about pricing, power, and inflation in companies raising prices like crazy Again, right? should make us nervous in that.

What is how is the market reacting? Step Bro: not stuck. step row, not stuck. Step bro out having a good time. That's what step Pro is doing.

Step Bro first is like oh no, is he stuck? No, he ain't stuck. He's partying. This is insane. Uh, that's actually really, really good.

They the FED might actually stick a soft Landing Could you imagine that? No recession soft Landing Jerome Piles right? You know somebody asked me the other day they're like, well, maybe Jerome Powell just wants to rig everything. You know why? Why would he want it to be good? Because think about it. if you're Jerome Powell Do you want to be wrong? or do you want to be right? Well, obviously you want to be right. What if you're correct about the soft? Landing What if drone Powell is right that inflation ends up being transitory sticks of soft landing and actually navigates us into a boom decade of the 2020s? You know what's gonna happen to Jerome Powell They will make statues of that son of a gun people will start worshiping Jerome Powell if he could actually stick this.

So if you're Jerome Powell you want to be right. and if you could be right about those two things, you'll go down as probably you know. until next time. One of the greatest fed chairs ever.

And the guy with the money printer? crazy. What's the NBC saying about this? I've always liked Steve joining us right now to dig into the new retail sales numbers and the state of the consumer is Terry Lundgren He's former Macy's president CEO and chairman. of course he's now the CEO of Tjl advisors. and Terry What do you think of these numbers? Of course he's a consultant now.

as Rick was pointing out the first time since October that we've seen a plus sign in front of the retail sales. it's definitely stronger than we expected. Becky It demonstrates that the consumer does have, uh, have still have Firepower and is willing to to spend and it's definitely surpassed our expectations. And I Have to to say, when you think about one of the biggest reasons why I'm surprised is because we're going against such strong numbers and retailers are always looking to beat last year and the year before that and this compounded gain is quite extraordinary.

We've had 22 points of gain over the last three years in retail sales, so we're we're adding on top of that I Think it's uh, he's right. I Mean, think about all the covid sales, right? You're adding on top of those nuts Earlier with Jan Niffen and he was just pointing out that what you've seen for a while now has been that the luxury brands have done much better than some of the lower end. Brands And that makes a lot of sense when you consider inflation. really.

Cuts In higher food inflation, higher prices at the pump that cuts in to lower income consumers ability to pay for things, no question. Uh, we've talked about that in the past that a larger and larger percent of net income for the lower middle household income consumer is going towards shelter, food, and energy. Yeah, and when that happens, it obviously just reduces their ability to spend on discretionary items. So that doesn't affect that.

That high-end consumer you've got Lvmh, one of my my favorite companies on the screen. Uh, and and that consumer is going to continue? uh, continue to spend. And I think when there's more international travel uh, that business will go up even further because many people like to shop when they're on their vacation or when they're traveling. So for a long time, the markets people in general have been worried about what's happening to the economy.

That's a good point. By the way, when you when you travel, you just buy stuff because there's nothing else to do other than drink, buy stuff, and party. Fall By the wayside, when you're going to see the jobs Market Get hap, get, get tougher. None of that has happened yet.

Is this waiting for you? Think this really is going to happen later this year? Do you think it's going to eventually happen? You know. One of the key numbers here is the savings that consumers have. and historically we Americans spend our savings. You know, in the middle, middle, and lower household.

In because we spend our savings, get it all the way down to zero. That hasn't been the case since The stimulus packages help support those savings accounts. and it's it's maintained So so while that number has come down dramatically over the last two and a half years, consumers still have more than a trillion dollars in excess savings versus 2019. That combined with higher wage growth and as you mentioned, this very low unemployment number is giving that consumer still the confidence to continue to spend.

I Do think however, that as these inflationary bytes uh, keep challenging this consumer in terms of taking pieces of the uh of their of their overall net income. uh, that that will that consumption will slow down over time and again I Have to remind us we're just going against very, very strong retail sales numbers. All right, we're going to pull off this guy. Listen, he is absolutely 100 right.

Remember the study I've talked about many times on this channel. Harvard Economists tell us that if you have a dollar of money sitting in your bank account, you are nearly 100 likely to spend it. If you have that money in real estate or stocks or brokerage accounts, you are nearly 100 percent likely not to spend it. Therefore, in order to prop up the consumer, the consumer should not invest right.

Consumers should keep their money in savings accounts. That's how consumers get robbed and they never end up building wealth.