U.S. stocks are flat in the early going after a pretty good smacking yesterday. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) fell 1.3% and the Dow Jones Industrials (^DJI) did even worse after weak earnings from Caterpillar (CAT) and Microsoft (MSFT). So far corporate earnings have been a bit of a disaster with the exception of Apple (AAPL) which reported the single greatest quarter in the history of business last night.
Alas, Apple is an outlier in every way. For companies that don't have $178 billion on the balance sheet the picture is much gloomier. Durable good orders missed estimates badly yesterday. More than 1/5th of the S&P 500 has reported and sales growth is all but non-existent for last quarter. CEOs are cutting cap-ex and talking layoffs.
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I've got some numbers that trump the nabobs of negativity in the corner office. The first is 70%; that's roughly how much of the American economy is based on retail sales. The mindset of Joe Sixpack matters much more than IBM (IBM) as far as investors are concerned and on that front things are looking pretty good.
We've got two entirely made-up national holidays in our immediate future in the form of this Sunday's Super Bowl XLIX and Valentine's Day, known this year as "experiment night" in honor of the Fifty Shades of Grey movie.
According to the National Retail Federation Americans are going to spend $14 billion on the Super Bowl and another $19 billion on Valentine's Day. Both those numbers are records and represent low teen percentage growth over last year.
Maybe we aren't buying refrigerators but the NRF says more than 8% of the U.S. is looking to buy a TV just for the Super Bowl. 80% of the country plans to stock up on food and beverages for the game; that's way more than than the number of people who plan to watch on CBS (CBS). In fact, fewer than 50% of those surveyed care about the game at all. They just want to go to a party and watch the commercials.
Dismiss that data if you want. I get it. These surveys are more flawed and self-serving than a Bill Belichick science lesson. There's one stat that provides incontrovertible proof that Americans are in the mood to spend.
21.2% of the adults in this country plan to buy Valentine's Day gifts for their pets. That's $700 million in the saddest yet most bullish spending imaginable. I've said before there's nothing more discretionary than a Halloween Costume for a dog. I was wrong. The most disposable income on earth is that which you spend buying flowers for your goldfish.
When the government data and consumer spending tell different stories listen to the consumer. That's where the money is.
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