What Walmart's Upgraded Sales Outlook Says About the Market As a Whole
The stock market is a forward-looking investment vehicle. But economists are struggling to predict what's coming next.
On the one hand, historically high inflation is causing consumers to spend more, resulting in excess savings in the U.S. dropping more than 75% since August 2021, according to the San Francisco Federal Reserve. Moreover, inflation motivated the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates at an unprecedented pace, causing major bank failures and looming refinancing complexities in the commercial real estate market, among other things.
On the other hand, retail sales in the U.S. grew 0.7% in July, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, which continues a streak of better-than-expected sales numbers. Additionally, the unemployment rate sits at 3.5%, which is historically very low and signals that the job market is strong.
Source Fool.com
