Wednesday Musings

“Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do.”

– Pope John Paul XXIII

This past week Markets (S&P500) down just under 2%, but is still up close to 17% for the year. All three major indices are still near all time highs.

Today all eye’s were on the Federal Reserve meeting, specifically whether or not they’re going to reduce their bond buying program, and when they are going to raise interest rates . The Fed gave no firm time table for either of those actions, but many believe in November they will taper their bond purchases, the potential for rate hikes starts at some point next year.

While many will focus on this, I remained focused on 70% of our economy, The Consumer. One of least talked about, but fantastic measure of the consumer is the Redbook Same Store Sales. The Redbook Same Store Sales Index is a weekly measure of comparable store sales at chain stores, discounters, and department stores.

The Chart below shows how strong this index looks, coming in at 17.1% increase year over year. This is a positive trend that I expect to see continue.