International Business Times: How will inflation and recession fears affect the holiday season?

November 14, 2022

The holiday season’s good start will continue!

Running Point and its chief investment officer, Michael Ashley Schulman, CFA, were quoted by International Business Times in an article—by Panos Mourdoukoutas, “Holiday Shopping Season Is Off To A Good Start For Brick And Mortar Retailers”—regarding what to expect from U.S. consumers this holiday season.

Shoppers may view this as their last spending spree before the economy possibly heads south and credit disappears!

American consumers have continued to spend throughout 2022 and will continue to do so through this holiday season. Unemployment remains extremely low and wages are up, so even though there may be reasonable recession fears, income is at record levels and some consumers may see this as their last chance for a spending spree before the economy heads south and their credit disappears.

Quoted article excerpts are below:

Michael Ashley Schulman, CFA Partner & Chief Investment Officer of Running Point Capital Advisors thinks consumer spending has been solid throughout 2022 and will stay that way through this holiday season. “We won’t see the record 14% to 17% sales growth of 2021’s holiday season when consumers were flush with pandemic cash and freshly gained stock market wealth, but we should at least see nominal growth of 6% to 8%, which will almost approach the rate of inflation,” he told IBT.

He sees consumer spending getting a boost from high employment and rising wages, though recession fears may temper it. “The main constraint on sales will continue to be from the supply side, not the demand side; big-ticket and semiconductor-intensive items like automobiles, electric vehicles, electronic gadgets, and snowmobiles may be hard to source,” he said.

Holiday Shopping Penguin: Art and graphics by Yrtist.com

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