Target CEO Brian Cornell says shoppers are pulling back, even on groceries, as they feel stressed about their budgets.
In an interview with CNBC’s Becky Quick that aired Thursday morning, he emphasized that the retailer has posted seven consecutive quarters of declining sales of discretionary items, such as apparel and toys, in terms of both dollars and units.
“But even in food and beverage categories, over the last few quarters, the units, the number of items they’re buying, has been declining,” he said in the interview.
Precisely. Inflation is near benchmark, but we’re not there yet. Most pricing indicators are cooling off, so the Fed will likely stop raising rates soon.
Imo (and I said this at the time), the Fed should’ve started raising rates long before COVID happened. The economy was on a tear, but borrowing was way too high and things like housing were way too cheap. So we should’ve started raising rates back in 2016 or so, as well as cutting back Federal spending, but instead we passed tax cuts and spent more.
Heh, remember when Trump railed against the Fed raising interest rates during his presidency? What a dummy.