Nancy Tengler, CEO of Laffer Tangler Investments, explains why the American consumer is stronger than reports show.
Transcript:
Caroline Woods: How are you thinking about the consumer. Overall, we did, of course, see retail sales fall more than expected last month. The economy, though, has been pretty resilient. The consumer has been pretty resilient. Is that kind of the first signs of cracks that we’re seeing in the consumer. And what does that mean for the overall economy?
Nancy Tengler: Well, Caroline, I think what we saw was a consumer that pulled back after actually bringing increasing demand ahead of the tariffs. So sort of front running the tariffs and then you saw a breather afterwards. But what you also saw no one’s really talking about is that the savings rate went up for the very same reason people tend to spend out of what is called their permanent income, and then they save the rest. Well, because they had spent so much the previous month, you saw savings increase. That’s going to provide a cushion. I don’t think the consumer is done, it’s going to, you know, it’s not going to be bullish across every retail environment. There’s going to be winners and losers. But I do think that the consumer is still healthy.
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