🛍️ Holiday-spending conundrum

Crossing off the Xmas list… one Paw Patrol toy at a time. A record 197M Americans shopped between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday, up 10% from last year. Spending hit $9.5B as folks splurged on everything from new MacBooks to Dyson Airwraps to “Encanto” dolls.

• Amazon said it sold “hundreds of millions” of items between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday in its biggest Thanksgiving holiday weekend ever.
• Walmart saw a 5% dip in store traffic, but its online searches for Black Friday discounts nearly 5X’d from last year.
• Overall, holiday spend is forecast to grow between 6% and 8% this year — slower than last year, but still above historical averages.

The consumer’s alive and well… but the clock is ticking. Investors keep a close eye on consumer spending because it makes up two-thirds of US GDP. In October, spending growth accelerated from September as inflation cooled slightly. Americans splurged on new cars, furniture, makeup, and eating out — a sign that discretionary spending’s still hot. But as inflation-adjusted “real wages” dip, shoppers are racking up debt to keep splurging:

• IOUs up: US credit-card balances jumped 15% in Q3, the biggest year-over-year spike in over two decades. Meanwhile…
• Savings down: Americans are stashing cash at the lowest rate since 2005 and dipping into pandemic savings to fund their lifestyles.

Khakis < stretchy chinos… As workers return to offices, they’re keeping their clothes casual. That benefits legging legend Lululemon, which has been expanding its work-leisure offerings for years. Lulu thrived in the pandemic as loungewear became the norm everywhere. The good times stretched on in the September quarter as Lulu’s sales and profits beat expectations (again). Lulu also boosted its outlook in September, but we’ll see whether shoppers are still splurging on lavishly priced Lulu fits when it reports Thursday.

Tomato bisque FTW... While the market has tanked, Campbell Soup stock is up 25% this year. The 153-year-old canned-soup icon has been on a pandemic streak ever since people started hoarding its pantry staples (snacks like Goldfish and Snyder’s make up over half its sales). In Campbell’s last reported quarter, sales were up 6% — impressive considering its soup sales had fallen for eight of the nine years up to 2020. Big food companies like Kellogg, Pepsi, and Kraft have also outperformed. We’ll see if Campbell’s soup is still hot when it reports Wednesday.

Yellen from the mountaintops… for tougher crypto regs. Last week Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that FTX's collapse — and the loss of billions in customer funds — made crypto regulation urgent. Last week the Senate held a hearing on FTX with Rostin Behnam, chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, who testified that his agency needs Congress to give it power to prevent future crypto calamities. The twist: Behnam's pushing for a bill (the Digital Commodities Consumer Protection Act) once promoted by then-FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.

Yes cap… On Friday, EU countries agreed to cap the price of Russian crude at $60/barrel. The cap sets a max purchasing price on Russian oil to hurt the Kremlin’s income, which is fueling its war on Ukraine. As of today, the EU will also ban seaborne imports of Russian oil (though pipelines will keep flowing). The cap might not be very effective, though, since China and India, the biggest buyers of Russian oil, don’t seem inclined to support it. Meanwhile, Russia has said it won’t sell oil to countries who implement a cap. That could exacerbate the winter energy crunch.

• Flix: Netflix reportedly plans to expand its Preview Club to boost engagement by letting viewers shape content before it goes live. The streamer added humor to “Don’t Look Up” based on (pre)viewers’ feedback.
• Sublet: Airbnb teamed up with landlords to boost the supply of (legally) Airbnb-able apartments, which it’s short on. No more need to tell your neighbors — ahem — “those are just my French cousins.”
• Blue: As Twitter tries to diversify beyond ad revenue with subs, Elon Musk criticized Apple’s 30% “app tax,” joining critics like Epic Games and Spotify. But antagonizing Apple could have consequences.

• Sick: President Biden signed legislation to avert a rail strike. The sticking point had been paid sick days. Railroad operators' refusal to grant them is due partly to industry changes like worker cuts.
• Zero: China started loosening some of its strict zero-Covid policies after a rare wave of mass protests to the disruptive rules. Major cities like Shanghai and Hangzhou scrapped PCR testing requirements for entry into public venues like parks and subways.
• Finklept: A congressional probe says several fintechs helped push through sketchy applications to the $800B pandemic Paycheck Protection Program, likely contributing to as much as $4B in PPP fraud.

• Monday: Earnings expected from GitLab
• Tuesday: Earnings expected from AutoZone, MongoDB, HealthEquity, Toll Brothers, Dave & Buster’s, and Stitch Fix
• Wednesday: Earnings expected from Campbell Soup and The Duckhorn Portfolio
• Thursday: Jobless claims. Earnings expected from Costco, Broadcom, Lululemon, Chewy, Vail Resorts, DocuSign, and National Beverage
• Friday: Earnings expected from Oracle and Johnson Outdoors

Authors of this Snacks own: shares of Amazon, Netflix, Spotify, and Walmart

ID: 2621840