Published By Banyan Hill Publishing | | | | Published By Banyan Hill Publishing | | | | The Holy Grail & the American Consumer By Charles Sizemore
Chief Editor, The Banyan Edge | Banyan Nation, Nothing quite takes me back to college like Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
The movie is utterly ridiculous, and it was already a good 20 years old by the time I started my freshman year. But I wasted many an afternoon, generally with a beer in hand, watching, rewatching and, yes, quoting that classic movie...
At any rate, reading the Census Bureau’s August report of Advance Monthly Sales for Retail and Food Services made me think of one particular scene in Grail.
A man pushes a cart through the village calling out: “Bring out your dead!”
But as one of the villagers brings out a body, the would-be corpse insists he’s not dead. In fact, he feels fine!  (From Monty Python & the Holy Grail.) The man carrying the would-be corpse really doesn’t want to suffer the inconvenience of waiting for the cart to make its next round on Thursday, so they club him on the head and throw him on the cart anyway.
And it seems that no matter how hard the American consumer gets clubbed on the head, they’re still not quite dead yet. Consumer spending rose 0.6% in August over July levels and rose 2.5% over the levels of August 2022.
In particular, spending in restaurants and bars was up a whopping 8.5% over last year’s levels.
However, digging a little deeper, I suppose we could be forgiven for clubbing him and throwing him on the cart. Spending on furniture and home goods was down nearly 8%, and building materials and gardening supplies were down about 5%.
It’s not hard to see what’s happening here. With the housing market dead on arrival due to high interest rates, and general lack of affordability, people are buying fewer home goods.
It’s also important to remember that large purchases, like furniture, are often made on credit. And having to finance that new couch at pawnshop-level interest rates is certainly a disincentive to buy it.
I’ve been warning for months now that the restarting of student loan payments might be the straw that finally breaks the back of the American consumer. That starts in October, so we haven’t seen the data cycle through yet. But we will soon enough.
In the meantime, work on your bartending skills! Because it seems the only thing that Americans are really shelling out on is food and drink...
However, we’ll get through this. We’re already looking past any potential slowdown to the next set of opportunities for profits. | | | Adam O’Dell has pulled out all the stops. In his most ambitious project ever, he has finally brought together the powerhouse force of AI ... and fused it with his legendary ratings system. The result is a technology with the power to crush the market by 300-to-1 ... turning every $5,000 into $6.6 million. On September 19, at 1 p.m., ET, he’s revealing how.
Click here for the full details. | | | Weekly Recap:  - Fintech, Health Care, AI & More: Total Wealth Symposium 2024
It’s back! Banyan Hill will be hosting its first Total Wealth Symposium for the first time since 2019. Previous symposiums have given our team the opportunity to share some of the very best ideas, years before they went mainstream. (And you probably read about them in The Wall Street Journal.) Here’s a sneak peek at what is on the agenda.
- EVs to Save the U.S. Economy?
The price of oil is on the rise ... and perhaps it’s no coincidence, but so are sales of electric vehicles. Over the past year, EV sales rose from 2.2% of all cars sold to 6.1%. And that trend isn’t slowing down.
Electrification of the auto fleet is one of the major trends of our lifetimes — and one that is creating fantastic long-term investing opportunities.
- New High in Oil — Here’s What to Do Now
Oil just closed at a 10-month high! And this is just the start of oil’s bull market. In the long term, it will pay to be bullish on oil. There are three major reasons you want to make this your next investment (and you can get access to Charles Mizrahi’s #1 recommended oil stock right here).
- How the Fed Could Spark a Buying Frenzy
The Federal Reserve has a tough job. It’s guessing what the interest rate should be today to affect inflation and unemployment a year from now. And there are only two possible outcomes. But the Fed’s next move could spark the next stock buying opportunity ... all while one economic indicator points to a soft landing versus a recession.
- How AI Took Me to the Peak of Profit Mountain
Artificial intelligence is at our fingertips like never before. This tech has been around for years, but until recently, only the wealthy elite had access to it. While that’s still largely true, ChatGPT isn’t the only mainstream AI software in town. This new AI-backed investment strategy can help you beat the market ... by 300-to-1.
Stay Tuned for the Monday Podcast!  There’s always a bull market somewhere. Well, apart from bars and restaurants. And that’s the idea behind Adam’s new project, which he’s calling “Infinite Momentum.”
I’ve been following Adam’s work for a decade now, and this one has me excited because it’s exactly the kind of strategy we need in a transitional market like this.
I would liken it to a relay race. Just as one runner hands the baton to the next, Infinite Momentum consistently trades into the stocks showing leadership.
I’ll be discussing this with Adam on Monday’s podcast, so be sure you tune in!
Regards,
Charles Sizemore
Chief Editor, The Banyan Edge | | | Over the last 24 years, the S&P 500 has turned a $5,000 stake into $22,000. One AI-driven system here has beaten that by 300-to-1. And we’re revealing it for the first time ever on September 19. Click here now for the full details. | | | (c) 2023 Banyan Hill Publishing. All Rights Reserved. Protected by copyright laws of the United States and international treaties. This Newsletter may only be used pursuant to the subscription agreement. Any reproduction, copying, or redistribution, (electronic or otherwise) in whole or in part, is strictly prohibited without the express written permission of Banyan Hill Publishing. P.O. Box 8378, Delray Beach, FL 33482. (TEL: 866-584-4096) Legal Notice
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