Based on the Fed’s wealth effect creating surge in stock prices, Guggenheim’s Scott Minerd believes retail sales should be up 5.8% in Q4 2013. However, as we noted before, expectations are for a dismal 1-2% holiday spending growth at best; as 2013 is set to be the worst holiday spending season since 2009. Stores from Tilly’s to Abercrombie and Wal-Mart are warning, the NRF projects the first drop YoY since 2009, and gas prices are set to rise (further pressuring consumers’ disposable incomes). The bottom line – as we already know – is that QE’s effects on the real economy (if there were ever any?) are set to end in the 2013 holidays.
A 1-2% spending rise expectation is less than half the S&P’s surge would imply…
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