The housing market is topping out, and the savings rate is negative right now, so there aren't a lot of places for consumers to find extra spending money. |
The long-awaited bounce in economic activity has finally arrived. While we had forecast a pickup in the second half of the year, this kind of strength was not anticipated. |
The strong retail sales we saw in the second half of 2005 will be replaced by more conservative spending in the new year. |
There are some consumers who will say, 'I want the best I can get' and will forgo something else. |
This was clearly more than just a ho-hum holiday season as some have prematurely reported. |
We expect consumers to become more conservative as the year goes on. |
We will see much weaker sales in February. I think consumers will be harder pressed to spend the way they have been spending. |
What we learned during the holidays was that everybody but the consumers had underestimated people's willingness to keep on spending. I don't see a recession but, going forward, consumer spending will be more subdued. |
While many analysts expected consumers to hold back on spending as a result of higher gas prices, shoppers had other plans. This is a good sign for retailers as they head into the holiday season. |