Stephen Stanley Consumer Quotations

If it didn't happen in the first quarter, it's going to have to happen at some point. If consumer spending or investment spending was a lot weaker than expected, it'd be a lot more troublesome.

We still do not look for the core CPI to accelerate rapidly, but it is likely to be persistently firmer going forward. At a minimum, core consumer price inflation will be firm enough to keep the Fed on edge and raising interest rates.

The big picture for the consumer still looks good.

Consumer spending numbers continue to be very good and manufacturing continues to surprise to the upside, which all suggests the economy has a lot of momentum right now.

The consumer is doing quite well. The job market is doing quite well.

The consumer never really missed a beat, and now attitudes are beginning to catch up to reality. Once again, watch what they do, not what they say.

Clearly, Fed officials are more worried about the threatening things that they see (energy spike, eroding slack, etc.) than the benign core consumer price index readings.

I just don't think the consumer is going to roll over on the back of a cooling sector.

The economy has a lot of momentum. The consumer continues to do well because of the improving labor market, and businesses have a lot of cash and are getting more confident about deploying it.

The economy is clearly strong right now, and that's what these numbers reflect. In the short term, there's a risk people will pull back on spending, but that depends on how long gas prices stay high, and so far there's not much evidence the consumer is slowing down.