The US student loan pause is ending and likely to hurt sales

livemint.com:

consumer spending by anywhere from $9 billion a month to $70 billion a year. And that’s before accounting for the recent uptick in gasoline prices, which are now at their highest since October. Retailers must be pretty concerned about how this will effect shoppers, right? Well, yes and no.

Ask three different retailers and you’re likely to get three different answers, underscoring how there is little consensus among even those closest to consumers on how all this will play out. The surprisingly resilient American consumer is the primary reason why economists have pushed back or even eliminated their forecasts of a recession. The level of concern among retail executives over the resumption of student loan payments run the gamut from brushing it off as a non-event to bracing for a big pullback in spending.

Even Walmart is uncertain how this will impact the consumer. After two years of stimulus-fuelled spending, retailers are struggling to maintain their winning streak. Retail stocks have fallen from their highs this year as shoppers turned cautious or directed their spending from goods toward travel and dining out.

The S&P Retail Select Industry Index outperformed the overall S&P 500 Index for the most of two years beginning in 2020, but has underperformed this year. Much of the worry depends on who a retailer considers a core customer and what they’re selling. Bath & Body Works is expecting its unit prices to be flat through the year and net sales to decline in the next quarter.