are we getting some clarity into what people are spending on sort of within Services what are how are they still willing to put that money to work even though as we're looking at credit card debt mounting they're clearly not able to sort of balance that budget right now yeah well travel was very big and very big this summer we did see that spike in gas prices over the last month or so I think a lot of people put money into that but I think people have also been spending in and around their home and their home experience trying to get that ready for the fall for the back to school season so consumers again feeling a little bit ta out here investors again on the fence should they stay or should they go it's kind of a clash moment for a lot of investors wondering which direction the Market's going to go and if momentum is going to be there you know the stock market when the stock market has such a strong first half of the year like we had it produces what we call the wealth effect it makes people feel wealthier because they're watching shows like this they're seeing the averages move higher and then when you get this pullback you get this feeling of oh are we about to have another moment like we had back in 2020 or like we had last year or like we had had in 1999 so there's still a lot of psychological damage from those crashes I think we all look at charts like the one that was just up and and think about what that credit card spending leads to in terms of long-term debt and what broader implications that has on the economy and the consumer even further out from here because that's something that's been cited in terms of the delinquency rates that are now rising from many of the retail CEOs over the course of this earnings period too how concerned should they be about those delinquency rates in the longterm ramifications yeah well right now they're pretty small but they are growing we're seeing a higher Trend the FED noted it uh in its report recently about the the record credit card debt so that's starting to boil up and you know that hurts lower income folks the most because they can't avoid the big spend at the grocery store they can't avoid filling up their car with gas and shelter those are the three things that are costing the most right now food food away from home shelter and gasoline prices so they can't avoid that that hurts that lower income consumer the most the higher income consumer is doing okay as long as they're employed and we have seen wage growth at 4 4 and a half% so that's buffering some of that a little bit but I think we're going to see the slow down first in the lower income and then move its way a little bit higher and obviously a lot of these retailers still want to be attractive to some people who are you know trying to be a bit more budget conscious how do they walk that fine line between not discounting so much that affects their margins versus still being able to attract all these consumers and try and scoop up those dollars yeah look at the retail earnings we've seen so far Target obviously not performing very well right now because people are being a little bit more costc conscious and then you look at Walmart which had a much stronger quarter but Walmart has a lot more broader offerings they have the groceries they also have the goods and they also stack them high and let them fly they're willing to discount at scale because they have enough sales volume to handle it but some of these other retailers there's a point at which it really hurts their margins too much to keep discounting and if the the consumer doesn't feel strong enough to make purchases then discounting doesn't really make a lot of sense but Take It Outside the retail sector for a second and look at a company like Tesla that's done intense discounting to move volumes that's actually worked for the company because it's continues to grow market share even though it's cut way into its profit margin
