This is The Takeaway from today’s Morning Brief, which you can sign up to receive in your inbox every morning along with:
Economists and investors have been on consumer-slump watch over the past couple of months.
Warnings signs included a slump in retail sales in June and Amazon’s CFO flagging “cautious consumers.” Analysts were bracing for a tough round of retail earnings after a slump in Home Depot’s comparable sales.
They may be feeling a lot better after Thursday.
Retail sales in July roared back by 1%, and even though much of the gain came from vehicle and gas station sales, increases were broad-based.
That followed a stronger-than-expected earnings report from retail behemoth Walmart. While CFO John David Rainey wasn’t exactly effusively sunny when he spoke with Yahoo Finance, he was measuredly optimistic:
“We’ve seen consistency with the consumer. If you look at each…
