piranka/E+ via Getty Images US retail and food services sales rose in April with increases in nine of 13 categories. Sales in April grew 0.5% month-over-month, meeting the consensus forecast, according to advance estimates from the US Census Bureau and analyst data compiled by Econoday. Previously reported sales for March were revised to show a 1.6% month-over-month increase, down from the origina...
piranka/E+ via Getty Images US retail and food services sales rose in April with increases in nine of 13 categories. Sales in April grew 0.5% month-over-month, meeting the consensus forecast, according to advance estimates from the US Census Bureau and analyst data compiled by Econoday. Previously reported sales for March were revised to show a 1.6% month-over-month increase, down from the originally estimated 1.7% increase. Retail numbers rose in April even when excluding a continued rise in gasoline station sales amid elevated fuel prices, suggesting that inflationary pressures have yet to dent spending among higher-income consumers. "The powerful equity market rally is supporting spending on the upper leg of the K-shaped expansion, more than offsetting any pullback from those on the lower leg who are struggling with higher fuel, transportation and food costs," BMO Senior Economist Sal Guatieri said in a May 14 note. Amid resilient spending, however, consumer debt has hovered near record levels this year. US consumer credit card debt totaled $1.252 trillion in the first quarter, down from a record $1.277 trillion in the preceding quarter, according to Federal Reserve Bank of New York data. Meanwhile, total household debt hit a record $18.794 trillion in the first quarter. "Rising credit card debt nationwide suggests many everyday consumers are struggling to keep up with everyday expenses and make ends meet," Leslie Tayne, founder and head attorney at Tayne Law Group, a debt solutions law firm, said in an email to Market Intelligence. "This is a strong sign that inflation continues to strain household budgets. More Americans are relying on credit to pay for essentials as pandemic-era savings have largely been depleted." Pressure on consumers could mount as balances rise and probabilities fade for interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve this year due to inflation concerns. "While rates are lower than historic levels, borrowing costs are still expensive for the eve...
Alphabet unveiled the Googlebook, a new AI-native laptop line built around Gemini Intelligence, with hardware partners including Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, and Lenovo.
Alphabet unveiled the Googlebook, a new AI-native laptop line built around Gemini Intelligence, with hardware partners including Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, and Lenovo.
The internet is made for shopping. For years, the main inputs for e-commerce transactions involved targeted ads, algorithmic recommendations, SEO, and lots of mindless scrolling. But agentic commerce might represent a sea change for e-commerce: With the rise of AI agents doing shopping on behalf of consumers, how are retailers going to adapt? John Collison, co-founder of the financial services and...
The internet is made for shopping. For years, the main inputs for e-commerce transactions involved targeted ads, algorithmic recommendations, SEO, and lots of mindless scrolling. But agentic commerce might represent a sea change for e-commerce: With the rise of AI agents doing shopping on behalf of consumers, how are retailers going to adapt? John Collison, co-founder of the financial services and payment processing company Stripe, has first hand experience with all the ways e-commerce has changed in the last decade, and he thinks agentic commerce is going to completely transform the online shopping experience. We speak to Collison today about how AI has already changed the way consumers make purchasing decisions, why key word search is a "ridiculous" way to find things to buy, what it means when brands will have to appeal to AI agents as opposed to human buyers, and if AI agents can truly mimic human taste. (Source: Bloomberg)
Boy Wirat/iStock via Getty Images Bond volatility remains Inflation remained a central focus for investors this week, particularly in the United States. Headline inflation continues to run above 3.3% year-over-year, while the labor market has remained resilient. The U.S. economy added 115,000 jobs, well above consensus expectations of 65,000. At the same time, wage inflation has stayed relatively ...
Boy Wirat/iStock via Getty Images Bond volatility remains Inflation remained a central focus for investors this week, particularly in the United States. Headline inflation continues to run above 3.3% year-over-year, while the labor market has remained resilient. The U.S. economy added 115,000 jobs, well above consensus expectations of 65,000. At the same time, wage inflation has stayed relatively muted. Taken together, markets are increasingly pricing in an extended pause from the Federal Reserve through the remainder of 2026, with expectations for a potential rate hike shifting into early 2027. Bond yields moved higher during the week. The U.S. 10-year Treasury yield rose from roughly 4.3% at the end of April to around 4.48%, driven in part by a stronger-than-expected producer price index reading. Markets are now focused on the upcoming release of the Fed’s preferred inflation measure, core PCE, later this month. Outside the U.S., UK bond markets experienced increased volatility amid political uncertainty, softer labor market data and persistent energy-related inflation pressures. UK 10-year gilt yields moved above 5%, reflecting rising inflation expectations. Credit markets remain constructive Despite elevated macro uncertainty, credit markets have remained relatively stable . Bond market volatility, as measured by the MOVE Index, has moderated significantly from earlier highs this year. Investment-grade credit spreads tightened modestly during the week, while high yield spreads remained relatively contained. Within investment-grade markets, longer-duration bonds and larger issuers have outperformed, creating potential relative value opportunities in smaller issuers and shorter-duration segments. Issuance activity also remains robust, particularly in sectors tied to artificial intelligence. Hyperscaler issuance has already surpassed total 2025 levels, with borrowers increasingly issuing debt across global markets, including Canada, Europe and Japan. This growing c...
Bet_Noire/iStock via Getty Images May the odds be ever in your favor. That was the cynical sentiment expressed to those unfortunate souls selected for participation in the “Hunger Games,” the much-read and much-seen saga by author Suzanne Collins. With a 95.83 percent chance of death in that contest (23 out of 24), the odds were most definitely not in one’s favor. Now, Kevin Warsh did not come int...
Bet_Noire/iStock via Getty Images May the odds be ever in your favor. That was the cynical sentiment expressed to those unfortunate souls selected for participation in the “Hunger Games,” the much-read and much-seen saga by author Suzanne Collins. With a 95.83 percent chance of death in that contest (23 out of 24), the odds were most definitely not in one’s favor. Now, Kevin Warsh did not come into his new post as chairman of the Federal Reserve through any “reaping,” as per the protocols of the Panem games in the fictitious series. This is, arguably, his dream job. Unfortunately for him, though, the state of the global economy today means that the odds are in his favor about as much as for some hapless tribune from District Eleven or wherever. No Room for Rate Cuts Warsh took the baton yesterday from outgoing Fed chair Powell (Powell will be staying on for the foreseeable future as a regular board governor). On Friday morning, bond yields jumped for a variety of reasons mostly linked to the persistence of high energy prices, with resulting upward pressure on consumer and producer prices, and the apparent lack of any kind of definitive action coming out of this week’s summit meeting between the US and China. The 30-year bond yield is at its highest level in recent history. Bond market investors have taken stock of the inflation situation and concluded that there will be no interest rate cuts in 2026, with doubts even as to their likelihood in the first half of 2027. Core inflation, as shown in the chart above, remains well above the Fed’s target rate of two percent, a level last seen in 2021. Core inflation excludes the volatile categories of food and energy, thus not directly reflecting the spike in fuel prices since the beginning of March. But those higher energy costs eventually work their way into the broader economy, as seen in the chart above (the green line). Conditions are even worse at the wholesale level. The headline Producer Price Index (PPI) for April, ...
From a statistical standpoint, President Donald Trump has been great for Wall Street. During his first term (Jan. 20, 2017 – Jan. 20, 2021), the widely followed Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJINDICES: ^DJI) , benchmark S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) , and technology-driven Nasdaq Composite (NASDAQINDEX: ^IXIC) soared 57%, 70%, and 142%, respectively . Since Trump's second, non-consecutive term began o...
From a statistical standpoint, President Donald Trump has been great for Wall Street. During his first term (Jan. 20, 2017 – Jan. 20, 2021), the widely followed Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJINDICES: ^DJI) , benchmark S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) , and technology-driven Nasdaq Composite (NASDAQINDEX: ^IXIC) soared 57%, 70%, and 142%, respectively . Since Trump's second, non-consecutive term began on Jan. 20, 2025, we've observed a similar outperformance from Wall Street, albeit with plenty of volatility, too! The Dow, S&P 500, and Nasdaq Composite have rallied 14%, 23%, and 34%, through the closing bell on May 8, 2026. On an annualized return basis, the stock market's major indexes have delivered higher returns with Trump in the White House than under most presidents since the late 1890s. Continue reading
The acclaimed author and poet talks about her new book, telling the true stories of patients at a derelict Victorian psychiatric hospital – a place in which she might have found herself at a different time Doireann Ní Ghríofa wrote much of her first book of prose, A Ghost in the Throat, sitting in her car on the top floor of a multistorey car park, having dropped her children off at school in Cork...
The acclaimed author and poet talks about her new book, telling the true stories of patients at a derelict Victorian psychiatric hospital – a place in which she might have found herself at a different time Doireann Ní Ghríofa wrote much of her first book of prose, A Ghost in the Throat, sitting in her car on the top floor of a multistorey car park, having dropped her children off at school in Cork city. Whatever works: her imaginative journey into the life and mind of 18th-century Irish poet Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill was so convincing and original that it captivated readers and won the James Tait Black biography prize and, in Ireland, the An Post book of the year award. Having published several well-regarded collections of poetry, it seemed as if this blend of biography, memoir and meditation had enlarged the way in which she could write about her abiding preoccupation: the ever-present past. She returned to her car to work on her new book, Said the Dead. But this time, it was parked in front of a vast building high on a hill overlooking the river Lee, one half of it derelict and the other half transformed into apartments. Its history was long: originally referred to simply as the district asylum at the end of the 18th century, a grand gothic-revival building had been constructed during the 1840s, and named, after Ireland’s Lord Lieutenant, the Eglinton Lunatic Asylum; in the 20th century, it became the Cork District Mental Hospital and, in its last incarnation before closing in 1992, Our Lady’s Psychiatric Hospital. Many such institutions existed across Ireland, a patchwork of private and public mental health provision that operated against the backdrop of colonial rule, poverty and famine. Continue reading...
Listen to Odd Lots on Apple Podcasts Listen to Odd Lots on Spotify Watch Odd Lots on YouTube Subscribe to the newsletter The internet is made for shopping. For years, the main inputs for e-commerce transactions involved targeted ads, algorithmic recommendations, SEO, and lots of mindless scrolling. But agentic commerce might represent a sea change for e-commerce: With the rise of AI agents doing s...
Listen to Odd Lots on Apple Podcasts Listen to Odd Lots on Spotify Watch Odd Lots on YouTube Subscribe to the newsletter The internet is made for shopping. For years, the main inputs for e-commerce transactions involved targeted ads, algorithmic recommendations, SEO, and lots of mindless scrolling. But agentic commerce might represent a sea change for e-commerce: With the rise of AI agents doing shopping on behalf of consumers, how are retailers going to adapt? John Collison, co-founder of the financial services and payment processing company Stripe, has first-hand experience with all the ways e-commerce has changed in the last decade, and he thinks agentic commerce is going to completely transform the online shopping experience. On this episode, we speak to Collison about how AI has already changed the way consumers make purchasing decisions, why keyword search is a \
A primary school in China sparked controversy for letting its pupils fill in a detailed questionnaire about their parents’ work. The survey, titled Observation List of Parents’ Occupation, was distributed to pupils at the beginning of May at Huatai Primary School in Tianmen, central Hubei province, Zonglan News reported. The questions regarding their parents’ work coincided with the May Day holida...
A primary school in China sparked controversy for letting its pupils fill in a detailed questionnaire about their parents’ work. The survey, titled Observation List of Parents’ Occupation, was distributed to pupils at the beginning of May at Huatai Primary School in Tianmen, central Hubei province, Zonglan News reported. The questions regarding their parents’ work coincided with the May Day holiday which is celebrated in mainland China as Workers’ Day. The school said that it aimed to boost...
The internet is made for shopping. For years, the main inputs for e-commerce transactions involved targeted ads, algorithmic recommendations, SEO, and lots of mindless scrolling. But agentic commerce might represent a sea change for e-commerce: With the rise of AI agents doing shopping on behalf of consumers, how are retailers going to adapt? John Collison, co-founder of the financial services and...
The internet is made for shopping. For years, the main inputs for e-commerce transactions involved targeted ads, algorithmic recommendations, SEO, and lots of mindless scrolling. But agentic commerce might represent a sea change for e-commerce: With the rise of AI agents doing shopping on behalf of consumers, how are retailers going to adapt? John Collison, co-founder of the financial services and payment processing company Stripe, has first-hand experience with all the ways e-commerce has chang